Quote of the Day - June 23, 2007

Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy but socially dead.

- Wheel of Morality

Tongue Twister and a Half

I wonder how many takes this segment took. Remember to speak quickly, but enunciate, so as to drive the censors insane.

Quote of the Day - June 21, 2007

I am a lab mouse, I escaped from my cage.
Never had a job, never earned minimum wage.
But you will respect me,
yes,
once my plan is unfurled.
You'll call me your leader,
I'll be king of the world.

- Bubba Bo Bob Brain

Let's All Pretend To Go To Mars!

The ESA is looking for volunteers to participate in a simulated Mars mission. Six people, 17 months, 19,250 cubic feet. They obviously won't be able to simulate weightlessness, but they are trying to simulate as many elements of a mission to Mars as they can, including the increased time delay in communication as they get further into their mission. The ESA hopes to learn about the psychological effects of a long term mission.

Of course, I'm not sure a trip to Mars would actually be that short. It may take 250 days to get to Mars, but once you're there, you aren't spending just a day there. In fact, you may have to camp out there for two years while you wait for Mars to get into a position that will allow you to use the least fuel for the return trip home. That means building shelters, setting up hydroponics for food and oxygen production, and being away from your loved ones and gases for the better part of 3 years. Even assuming you have plenty of fuel to get back in the same amount of time it took to get there right away, if you take that much time to get some place, you're not just going to stop in for a spot of tea. If humans go to Mars, it will be to colonize, not site see (well, okay, maybe a little of both).

No Touching!

All forms of physical contact have been banned at a Fairfax County, VA middle school. Apparently, because some kids don't know the difference between "good" touching and "bad" touching, they should never have the opportunity to learn the difference. In this school, high fives are as bad as punches. A hand on the shoulder as bad as groping. It's sounds to me like the school is too lazy or too scared to make judgment calls on a fuzzy line and figures it would just be easier to ban all physical contact and call it a day.

The school's principal says that she "has seen a poke escalate into a fight and a handshake that is a gang sign." Trash talking can also lead to fights. Will they ban verbal communication next? I'm pretty sure there are some gang signs that don't require physical contact. Will hand signals be banned, too? Or, better yet, all body language. And eye contact. Eye contact can be very intimidating. You know what? Middle school sucked anyway. Let's just ban middle school. The kids can stay home through the better part of puberty and become socially stunted in the comfort of their own living room instead of trudging to school to get that way. They can do distance learning. They can take classes on their impersonal computer which will become their wire mesh mothers, providing socialization only in the form of text messaging, e-mail, and bulletin boards. That will make everything better.

Little Red Dress

Some clothes get handed down from sibling to sibling. Then there's the little red dress: