Or, What Would John Galt Drive?
I don’t know, but somebody in Grand Junction, Colorado is prepared for him and several others, presuming they don’t drive anything too big. Click the pictures for a larger image.
We know what this guy drives, but not if he’d park it in a space labeled this way:
Among the other spaces reserved were ones for Dick Grayson and Mrs. Robinson. Somebody was having fun.
I’m not talking about anything serious here, it’s just an overarching theme for the post. As usual, click any picture for a larger version.
First, we have my car. Last Thursday morning, I went out to brush the snow off and found that someone had abused it like this:
I have my suspicions about how it happened, but no proof. As it happens, there’s a soap opera occurring between the neighbor whom I suspect was the culprit (and who came to my door Monday at lunch to say, “I saw the damage on your car. I can fix that for you cheap.”) and the people who are renting the house to them. Well … not to them, actually, which is part of the soap opera, but I’m not going to get into that any further.
Second, we have what I suspect is a practical joke. At least, I hope someone is abusing the EZ Mart. Maybe Peter is abusing the EZ Mart, or perhaps he’s being abused, as well. The alternatives are that it’s a real promotion (which means somebody involved with it is stupid), or that it’s a coded message. Look at the advertisement in the center column that ends just above the purple area to its left.
Next, we have self-abuse, of a different and creepy sort.
I’m not sure who’s being abused here, but I’m sure somebody’s gotta be.
Finally, we have food abuse, or abusive food, or a food fight – or maybe it’s just a typo:
Tuesday was the anniversary of the Great Escape, and several of the survivors are going to return to the site of Stalag Luft III to remember their companions. I’m sorry that I didn’t realize it in time. Paul Brickhill’s book is one of the first I can remember purchasing, and I’ve always been fond of the movie, even knowing some of its inaccuracies.
Thou mayest avoid unnecessary panic.
Amaze your friends with the Jenga pistol.
This seems rather strange. I’m not sure what I could compare it with as a similar misuse (?) of advanced tools.
Something I’m finding to be a useful reference these days.
Another reference, this time to bit-twiddling hacks. I’ve got a book that covers this and more, but more than one source of info isn’t a problem.
And finally, a little humor that I found at Bits and Pieces:
Well, I will, for one.
Yesterday, Cheryl and I had lunch with Zombyboy. After that, we went to see Watchmen on the giant screen, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I thought casting and makeup were quite good; the major characters looked like I remembered them from the book (although it has been a few years since I’ve read it). I knew going into it that the ending was changed from the book, but it worked as well, if not better, than the original ending would have. The original ending would have required more setup to make it work, and the movie was long enough already.
One other change from what I remembered was the riot scene – I was hoping to see Dr. Manhattan explain that it was not a request when he told the rioters, “You will all go home.” I also didn’t remember the flamethrower scene (you’ll know which one). Those are minor changes, though.
I’m not a purist; I understand that movies can’t always follow the story they’re developed from faithfully. This one did fairly well. It didn’t match the book as closely as The Maltese Falcon matched its book, but neither was it as poor a rendition as was Starship Troopers.
Overall, a good movie. Even if I won’t be waiting for the DVD release with bated breath, I still would enjoy seeing it again.
By the way, I suppose I should mention that I’ve lusted after Rorschach’s mask since I first saw the book.
Last Wednesday, I met a friend for lunch. I drove up to Longmont and met my friend Steve and his friend, Greg, at the Longmont airport, and we flew to Greeley and had lunch, then flew back. My friend owns a 1963 Beechcraft Musketeer, and it was the first time I’d been in a plane this small since a flight in a Navy trainer.
It was an interesting flight, and I’m glad I took him up on the offer, even though I get nervous flying. Steve’s also giving Greg some informal flying lessons, which didn’t do a lot for my equanimity. It wasn’t quite as bad as the tight turn Steve threw us into to check out the “spirit level” application in Greg’s cellphone, which required pulling a few G’s so that we could determine whether the cellphone used an inclinometer or an accelerometer. We determined that it was an accelerometer, which means that they can use the cellphone to develop an application for flying. I don’t think I left any crush marks where I was holding on …
Marion didn’t like hearing that we came within a few hundred feet of a collision, though. One of the ways they control air traffic is to assign certain altitudes to traffic in different directions. As we were climbing to cruise altitude on the way from Longmont to Greeley, another small aircraft passed almost over us travelling west at the eastbound altitude we were climbing toward – we were about 400 feet below the cruise altitude at the time. I was actually less nervous about it than the turn or Greg’s shaky flying, actually.
Then, on Thursday, Marion and I went to Grand Junction. She had a trade show to attend, and I didn’t have a job to prevent me from accompanying her. Nor had I spent any time in Grand Junction before, although I think I may have stayed there overnight while travelling cross-country in 1975.
I spent much of Friday wandering around downtown Grand Junction while Marion was busy, then met her at the end of the day. I did get to wander around the exhibit floor a little and picked up some swag. I skipped the pens except for two places: Ecos Environmental and Olsson Associates. The first one was just because I’ve been working for the last few years with the eCos RTOS, and I thought it was amusing. The second one was because the pen was multifunction: it has a bottle opener back end and is a refrigerator magnet. Neat. I also picked up few thermal beer/soda can holders, including one from Halliburton.
Anyway, fun activities for the week that were related to things starting with the letter ‘G’, giving me the post title.
John W. January, a Union soldier imprisoned at Andersonville, GA, and Florence, SC, who amputated his own gangrenous feet because no surgeon was available.
A bit more than a week ago, Futility Closet had a post concerning a phrasebook from the Borneo Literature Bureau containing phrases considered useful when traveling in Borneo.
It put me in mind of two things: first, the phrasebook English as She is Spoke, famous (infamous? notorious?) for its ineptitude. You can view excerpts from it on Google Books.
The second is a book in my personal library, the Handbook of Japanese Conversations, by Morio Takahashi. It contains sample conversations on a number of topics, such as:
And many more.
This book was published in 1951, but appears to have been written much earlier, or perhaps developed over a number of years with an upper-class Englishman as the reference for the English language. I say that because of some of the references, as well as the style of speech:
It also has some interesting vocabulary words that aren’t used in sample conversations, such as assassin, cutpurse, poaching, contraband, smuggler, and poison. Not to mention this sentence, which is part of a dialogue:
Let us hope that a visit to Japan will occasion no incident requiring the use of such vocabulary.
The feminist establishment has long been waging a war against men (after all, you have to work against an oppressor to become liberated, so men must oppressors if women need liberation), but it has now become absurd: Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred note the University of Connecticut police investigating an incident in which a man passed near a woman while walking down the street.
First of all, they were both walking on a public street. He passed within a few feet of her, but did not talk to her or make physical contact. What about the incident merits a police report? How does this woman expect to function if mere proximity to a male makes her call for the authorities?
Second, why wasn’t she laughed off by the authorities? He didn’t attack her, he didn’t follow her, he was just another pedestrian on the street. I’ve read about Driving While Black; this is Walking While Male, or maybe just Being Male.
She may have been afraid, but it sure doesn’t sound like he did anything illegal.