Posters for movies that never existed

It's a bit of an odd thing: to make posters for movie sequels that never existed.

But it worked pretty well.

I particularly like...

We are not a codfish...

• Why men hate being in pictures - mocking Jay...
• Happy b'day, Ken Griffey Jr - " the second-best left-handed-hitting outfielder ever from Donora, Pa."
• Alternate universe "What Ifs" - Holy crap, Randal.
• A Capella 'Cups' floweth over in the first Pitch Perfect 2 trailer - I enjoyed the heck out of the first one. I'll happily try this second one.

Four...four...four years old

1979 from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

Was there anything good on the radio in 1979?

Apparently yes.

I'm this many (holds up three fingers)!

1978 from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

1978 was a fine year, and it had some good songs.

Two years in...

1977 from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

1977 had some spectacular songs. Trust me on this one.

Football as art

I'm digging ESPN's ongoing illustrations of the big college football storylines from the weekend.

Actually, I should say I've been digging Chris Morris's illustrations of the same...

More Lego updates

• Lego The Simpsons 2015: leaked minifigure molds - looks like we'll get a Groundskeeper Willie, a Doctor Hibbert, and a Santa's Little Helper. Most excited about Willie from that trio.
• Lego CMF Series 13: unicorn girl and hot dog guy molds - ...but I'm way more excited about the Hot Dog Guy from this post. How cool is that?

I turned one.

1976 from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

Day 2, 1976...more music. Anybody wanna guess on tomorrow's theme?

Kobe Bryant, all about the volume...

This bit of statistical trivia came across ESPN's website this morning...

• Kobe Bryant had the 121st 40-point game of his career Sunday, but did so shooting 15-of-34 from the field. According to the Elias Sports Bureau research, only Wilt Chamberlain (72) has more games with 40 points when shooting less than 50 percent than Bryant's 51. No other NBA player in NBA history has more than 29 such games. 

It's early, and thinking about statistical projections when you're ten games into an eighty-two game season is foolish, but...from ESPN's NBA stats pages

• Kobe is currently second in the league, averaging 27.3 points per game (half a point behind LeBron). 
• Kobe is leading the league in field goals attempted by a pretty big margin (244 for Kobe in 10 games, 218 for Carmelo in 11 games, nobody else above 190).
• Kobe has the 119th best shooting percentage (37.7%) of all players who qualify for the leader boards...just behind Kevin Love (#118) and James Harden (#117).
• In points per shot, Kobe does come in a little better at #106 in the NBA with 1.12 points per shot.

Long term, this is clearly an aberration in  Kobe's shooting percentage for his career as he's shot 45.3% for his career and hasn't ever before shot lower than the 41.7% of his rookie season. Of course, this year's field goal attempts (24.4 per game) would be his second highest of his career after his 2005-06 season when he averaged 27.2 shots per game but scored 35.2 points per game on 45.0% shooting.

I mention all of this because a student of mine this past week mentioned that Kobe had set the record for most field goals missed in an NBA career at 13471 (and counting very quickly). The student then explained that there must be a correlation between shots missed, shots taken, and talent. Clearly, he said, anybody who's allowed to shoot that much must be making lots of their shots.

That's somewhat true, but the correlation between shots taken and missed is far from 1.0 for the greatest players.

The top shooters (field goals attempted all-time - from pro-basketball reference)...

1. Kareem - 28307
2. Karl Malone - 26210
3. Kobe - 24618 (would take two solid years of playing to catch Kareem)
4. Michael Jordan - 24537
5. Elvin Hayes - 24272
   (Kevin Garnett is the next active at #14 with 20792)

The top missers (field goals missed - also from pro-basketball reference)...

1. Kobe - 13471
2. John Havlicek - 13417
3. Elvin Hayes - 13296
4. Karl Malone - 12682
5. Kareem - 12470
   (Vince Carter is the next active at #13 with 10667)

The top makers (field goals made - same source)...

1. Kareem - 15837
2. Karl Malone - 13528
3. Wilt - 12681
4. Michael Jordan - 12192
5. Dr J - 11818
6. Shaq - 11330
7. Kobe - 11147 (would take six more years at current year's shooting percentage to get to #1)
   (Kevin Garnett is next among actives at #14 with 10341)

Top scorers (total points - from pro-basketball)

1. Kareem - 38287
2. Karl Malone - 36928
3. Michael Jordan - 32292
4. Kobe - 31973 (would take about three more years at this year's scoring average and really good health to get to #1)
5. Wilt - 31419
   (Dirk Nowitzki is the next active player at #11 with 26989)

The crack about Kobe not passing isn't entirely true. He has 5963 assists for his career, good for the #32 most of all time, averaging 3.8 assists per game (down from his career average of 4.8 per game).

McDonald's doesn't make the best burgers in the land, but they sell a ton of them.

Kobe Bryant is McDonald's...he's Wal-Mart...he's r-selected.

From the year of my birth

1975 from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

We're starting today with music from the year of my birth. Enjoy these songs from 1975.

I think your ivory is illegal. No, no, no. Mine is antique.

• Adam Sandler's The Cobbler trailer reveals a pretty sweet movie - I've enjoyed the couple of non-funny Adam Sandler movies (Punch Drunk Love, Spanglish) I've seen.
• What it really means to be a public school educator - We work pretty hard.
• On a clear day, you can see the tiara - I've wondered about what building I was seeing from I-75, too.
• 9 new restaurants you need to know about - new places to go try
• Here's Hank Hill, Stewie, and Bobby singing a parody of "All About That Bass" -Funny, weird stuff...

More photos of Minifigure series #13

More confirmation continues to appear about the list of collectible minifigures series #13.

This bit of info is thanks to HothBricks and gets some low-res images of the figures on a couple of display boxes in a style that I've never seen in stores around here.

After some zooming in, thoughts...

• Alien trooper - looks a lot like Cthulhu (on the top left, side)
• Egyptian warrior - meh...(on the top right, side)
• Unicorn girl - another awesome addition to the figures in animal costumes line...(on the middle, side)
• Disco diva - pretty cool (on the bottom, side)
• Snake charmer - curious to see what the snake looks like (bottom, left side)
• King - I dig the torso and the cape (bottom, front)
• Paleontologist - meh (bottom, front)
• Sheriff - love the mustache, love the wanted poster (bottom, front)
• Female cyclops - another opposite-sex pairing from the figure series (bottom front)

No images yet of galaxy trooper, evil wizard, goblin (curious there), hot dog guy, carpenter, samauri, and fencer.

That's two dozen

"Ya got ten...then ya got ten more...then it's like, what's this, four more?...twenty-four, faggetaboutit..."

This could revolutionize math as we know it.

The hometown's pride on Veterans Day

Thanks to Eerie Indiana for posting images (and to Bing for providing the aerial image) of the New Albany National Cemetery.

The eleventh day of the eleventh month...

Thanks to TedF for posting these images of the New Albany National Cemetery a few years back.

The cemetery was a place that was across the street from my elementary school, down the street from paternal Grandma & Grandpa's house, and less than a block from my junior high school. It's a place that means a great deal for me and where my maternal grandparents were laid to rest.

Veterans Day Memories

Veterans Day Memories

Reposting from 2006

The picture shows a Cub Scout placing flags at the gravestones in the New Albany National Cemetery, my home town. It's one of one-hundred twenty-three national cemeteries, but it's the one that's clearly closest to my heart.

It was across the street from my elementary school, diagonal from my junior high, and probably three blocks from my high school. I spent many a time walking along the walls of the cemetery or walking beside them instead of on the walls when, for a time, I would choose to express deference toward those fallen and intered there. I never remember playing through the cemetery as I remember some friends doing, and the rare cuts through the cemetery were always oddly solomn for me, even though it wasn't anything resembling a spooky cemetery. There were nice, huge, old trees here and there, but the world was just outside the low walls, and nothing every was scary there to me.

And in 1991 my grandfather, a veteran of two American wars, was intered there. It is ther first funeral that I'd been through, and it just might still be the only one I've been through. He lived to a ripe of age - seventy-two - and certainly didn't die as any result of his service time, but it was comforting for the few years after that when I still lived in New Albany to know that I could stop by and see his gravesite at any time, nestled there among the rows and rows of identical headstones marking the graves of so many veterans and their families.

Today is Veterans Day, a time to remember how much has been given to us for what our country is today. No matter your feelings for the policies of the current administration - and mine are often negative - no matter whether you believe in the conflicts into which our current military men and women are being sent, remember to honor them for their sacrifice. Without those sacrifices, our country would not be what it is today.

Take a minute to thank a veteran today. Visit him or her. Stop by a memorial - the Chris Dyer memorial. Or simply pause your assuredly hectic life for a moment and thank them silently.

To know more about the New Albany National Cemetery, see any of these links:

• Wikipedia's brief entry for it
• National Cemetery Administration's information page

Thanks, Grandpa...
Thanks, Chris...
Thanks each of you...

Pride in the hometown

Thanks to Robert 'Bobby' Powell for posting this image of the New Albany National Cemetery.

Tweedy on Austin City Limits

Check out the full episode of Austin City Limits featuring Jeff Tweedy, his son, and a few friends.

Feathers in a vacuum

This experiment proves absolutely nothing whatsoever that hasn't been proven a whole bunch of times before.

It uses a huge amount of resources to do that, taking four hours of pumping to evacuate a giant room of all its air so that a British guy could drop a few feathers and a bowling ball at exactly the same time.

But all of that doesn't matter in the least because this is just do frickin' cool...

 

My melon soul Crushed by your Gallagher of apathy...

• Lego Batman is Jelly - Chris Pratt is a heck of a catch, admittedly.
• Polar vortex to blast 200 million people with arctic air - It's November. It should be cold.
• Sequels that never happened posters - I love the Spaceballs III and the tag line for Fight Club 2.
• Infomercial Too Many Cooks - That's one freaky set of credits.

So many choices

Every day at school, I draw an event that happened on that day. They might be historically significant, scientifically important, curious, or just easy to draw.

Today presents so many interesting choices...

• 1907 – Jesús García saves the entire town of Nacozari de Garcia, Sonora by driving a burning train full of dynamite six kilometers (3.7 miles) away before it can explode.
• 1910 – The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse.
• 1940 – In Tacoma, Washington, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in a windstorm, a mere four months after the bridge's completion.
• 1991 – Magic Johnson announces that he is infected with HIV and retires from the NBA.
• 2000 – Controversial US presidential election that is later resolved in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Case. 
• 2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discovers one of the country's largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas.

I went with the Tacoma Narrows Bridge because it's easy to draw and scientifically interesting.

More Lego Collectible Minifigs

We're just barely a month since the release of Lego's Collectible Minifigures series #12, and we're getting our first leaked images and list for series #13, to be released on January 1 of 2015.

LEGO Minifigures, a tumblr, has a leaked list of the figures...and TheBrickFan has a couple of leaked images...

• Galaxy Trooper
• Alien Trooper
• Evil Wizard
• King
• Goblin
• Lady Cyclops
• Snake Charmer
• Palaeontologist
• Carpenter
• Hot Dog Guy
• Sheriff
• Samurai
• Disco Diva
• Unicorn Girl
• Fencer
• Egyptian Warrior

In the long run, the list is largely whatever. I'll be lining up to go a perfect sixteen-for-sixteen again.

Calen, are you in?

Mathmatical oddities...

This one comes to us from Futility Closet...

Discovered by R.V. Heath in 1950:

Think of two positive integers.
Add them to get a third number.
Add the second number and the third number to get a fourth number.
Continue in this way until you have 10 numbers.
The sum of the 10 numbers is 11 times the seventh number.

That didn't make sense to me, so I set up a little spreadsheet to check it, and I included x's and y's to see if it works.

To check it out, click the link above and enter any two integers in the yellow boxes of the top left. The totals show up in the green to the far right.

I'll tell you in advance that it works.

The latest in the media in my brain

Things I've read (mostly comic books) of late...

Really Good stuff...

• Afterlife with Archie: escape from Riverdale - I was shocked that this was actually really good. There's an impressive depth of characterization in the Archie gang's backstory here, setting up a number of impressively emotional moments as Riverdale is overrun by zombies created through an unfortunate Pet Sematary-style screw-up between Jughead and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. There could be a stronger ending, but they're aiming for an ongoing series here not for a neat, tidy wrap-up. Very much worth a read, good stuff.
• Fables: Camelot (vol 20) - We're headed toward the end, and I'm desperately sad about it. There are only two collections remaining after this one in the spectacular Fables series, and this one sets all the pieces into place for the climax. Rose Red and Snow, the two sisters who have been main characters issue one, are now pointed at odds with each other. Bigby is gone but working his way back. Even Gepetto is plotting to regain some of his old power. The new North Wind is marshaling her power for a pending battle between her mother and aunt. And the boys in the band return to the homelands with an idea, maybe the last idea of the series. This is going to be tough, but I'm happy I've been here the whole time.
• Young Avengers vol 1-3 - The entire series only lasted fifteen issues, so it wasn't that tough to read it in its entirety here in these three volumes. Nicely, these fifteen issues tell one coherent story, that of a teen superteam brought together to fight the interdimensional terror that they have accidentally summoned. It's a good reading of a pretty standard teen-team set of tropes (adults don't understand them; they're younger versions of adult heroes trying to live up to and throw off their legacies; they fall in and out of love with each other; they bring in other outcasts). Luckily it all works. Give this one a read - especially all the way to the series finale which is excellent but depends on knowing what's come before.

Decent stuff...

• Uncanny X-Men, vol 1 -  I like the idea of bringing back the Celestials as a plot point. I like the use of Sinister trying to take control of Celestial. It's a natural overreach from a most egotistical villain. What I didn't care for was the ending that consisted of Cyclops talking a lot to beings far more powerful than he...than all of the X-Men combined. Even the two single-issue stories worked well. Worth a check out but not perfect.
• Batman Beyond: Batgirl Beyond - Sadly, the titular Batgirl Beyond isn't a multi-issue arc. It's just one issue, but it's a pretty good issue...as are the rest of the issues here. See, Bruce Wayne is bringing some friends back into the Bat Family. Terry's girlfriend comes into the fold. Batgirl comes into the fold. The Metal Men come into the fold. Dick Grayson might be coming back into the fold. This one's owrth a read.
• Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell - Nothing special here. The story's kind of entertaining (particularly the small moments of Zatanna bringing toy JLAers to life and the fight with the Key on the old JLA satellite.) The artwork, however, was poor. On balance, meh...

Bad stuff...

• Spider-Man: Torment - Yay, Todd McFarlane! Draw a million extra lines to make things seem serious and dark and unpleasant. See, Spider-Man's lighthearted. He jokes. He laughs. He quips. But here he doesn't do any of those things. He just suffers and broods. Dumb.
• Batman The Dark Knight: Knight Terrors - It's a poor rehash of the Arkham breakout from Knightsend. Apparently Bane's in charge of the whole thing...maybe...or maybe the White Rabbit (a new porn star Bat-villain) is in charge or maybe nobody is. Avoid this one.
• Superman: What Price Tomorrow - This one introduces new villains for Superman (dumb ones), concocts a conspiracy to defeat Superman (it doesn't, of course), sells of the Daily Planet to a faceless, evil corporation (without any justification of the evilness other than that it's a corporation). Bad stuff...avoid this, too...
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers -  Ah, corporate synergy. The movie Guardians of the Galaxy team wasn't ever together in total in the comic books. They were gathered from various incarnations of the team over the past few decades. Here, however, Marvel puts together the team from the movie, and it doesn't work. Avoid this one, as well.
• Earth 2: The Gathering - Look, it's dumb reimaginings of dumb reimaginings of the superheroes you care about. See, it's not the New 52 Superman (a lesser version of the Superman you care about), it's an alternate version of the New 52 Superman...and Batman...and Wonder Woman...and The Flash...and Hawkgirl...and Green Lantern (he's gay, but they kill his partner after one page)...and Solomon Grundy. It's like the plague.

Update: A gag that never gets old

One more for the pile...sadly, the print is sold out...

And, from Super Punch...

"All day this couple ran up to different Batmans, yelled 'son!' and then dropped to the floor."

So crazy, someone may get injured...

• How tattoo removal works - Fascinating science from Smarter Every Day
• How Marvel can plan movies so far in advance - Sorry, Dave...funny comic
• More Marvel revivals on the way - After so many announcements about events with already used names, I'm getting kind of curious.
• The 69 superhero, comic book, cartoon, and Star Wars movies coming to you from now until 2020 - It's a little early to add these to my Google calendar, isn't it?

• Mom's not home, break out the trombone - It's the head turn from the kid that makes the video.

Movies...

From Den of Geek's list of Top 25 Must See Movies of 2015...and fall 2014...

From the 2015 list...

• Kingsman: The Secret Service - I like the ideas and am hoping it's not a James Bond, Jr kind of thing.
• Avengers: Age of Ultron - Of course I'm going to see this one. I doubt I'll be missing any of the Marvel movies in the theater.
• Tomorrowland - Not much to know about this one yet, but it's from Brad Bird, so it's a possibility.
• Jurassic World - Dead to me. Hate the whole franchise.
• Inside Out - PIXAR is a default watch.
• Ant-Man - I'm a little more leery, but it's Marvel.
• James Bond 24 - Daniel Craig is on a run of the finest Bond films we've ever seen.
• Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 - I'm not terribly excited about this one, but I'm guessing I'll see it in the theater.

From the 2014 list...

• Gone Girl and Birdman - already out, and I want to see them, but I haven't yet, so I don't know that it's going to happen.
• Wow...all dramas, huh?...not a single one there that stands out to me...maybe Rosewater or Flycatcher...seeing the trailers would help, probably...

The Quiraing

Just pretty photos today...photos of the Quiraing on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

source

source

source

source

source

source

A visit to the shire

A couple of weekends ago, Amanda Shires opened for Richard Thompson in Middletown. They've since wrapped up their tour (she's the blonde in the top left.)

I kinda enjoyed her music. Check out the videos below (from when she was very much not blonde).

Two horrible shorts

Two literally horrible but short videos today for Halloween season...



...and...



Both of them are parent-child horror videos. I warn you in advance, Calen.

Man, I probably should have put this warning at the top.

Well, can't change that now.

Halloween 8tracks

Happy Halloween, folks from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

Enjoy a Halloween party of 8tracks. I hope there's something a little different here for you.

Here's the full list (in graphical form because it was easier)...

At Veridian Dynamics, we're molding the children of today into the workers of tomorrow

I'm enjoying Netflix. Worked all the way through the last season of Archer (at least the last season on Netflix), have begun Better Off Ted (which I enjoyed when it was on live but didn't see regularly enough), and just started the last season of Breaking Bad.

• "Manson" from The Ben Stiller Show - I'd watch that sitcom. I'd watch the heck out of it.
• World record skydive - Felix Baumgartner got the publicity, but this guy actually jumped from a higher up.
• App of the Day: PhotoMath - This could be useful.

PhotoMath from MicroBLINK on Vimeo.

• The hottest selling toy this Christmas season is a plush ebola toy - That would look great on Calen's door shelf.

Nepal Annapurna: Climbing disaster toll reaches 39

This one isn't technically about Mt Everest, but it's in the range.

This past week saw a disaster kill at least thirty-nine hikers/climbers/eco-tourists in Nepal when the weather turned far nastier than they were prepared for.

Remember, kids: DON'T GO TO NEPAL.

DON'T HIKE OR CLIMB MOUNTAINS YOU AREN'T PREPARED FOR.

YOU WILL DIE.

The freakiest story

I don't know that I've ever found a website with a story as odd as today's link, titled simple The Beatles Never Broke Up.

It involves a wormhole to a parallel Earth, an unconscious author, a stolen cassette tape, and eleven downloadable tracks from 'The (alternate Earth) Beatles.'

People are fascinating.

Chlorophyll / Blood demonstration

That looks pretty frickin' awesome.

Take some chlorophyll (readily available in leafy, green veggies) with a little boiling, shocking, blending with oil, filtering, and shining black (UV) light on the mess that's formed.

Gonna see if I can get one of my students to film this.

I like offering points to get somebody else to do the messy stuff I don't want to but that I want to see anyway.

Here's my next few years' plans

Big thanks to Comics Alliance for putting the next few years of superhero comic movies into a single infographic for me.

Big excitement for...

• Avengers 2 - first one was an absolute blast
• Batman v Superman - big pressure here from DC in trying to effectively launch their universe
• Lego Batman - The first Lego Movie was amazingly brilliant. I have no idea how they top it or even keep it up.
• Sandman - no clue how they're going to bring the series to the screen, but it's JGL, so I give him a chance

How the heck do they have things planned for the next six years?

This sandwich is two things in one.

• Vitamix - You should get a Vitamix...if you can afford one.
• Portable Lego kit for little travelers - That's very cool.
• Chloride Ghost Town - I've been to Chloride, AZ.

It might be easier to pour the espresso right into the sugar.

• Shepherd Smith knows excellence and responsibility in his ebola coverage - Mark the day because I'm going to say that this Fox video shows that they do have some integrity.
• The difference between knowledge and wisdom - They are not the same, and this cartoon says as much.
• Use your cast iron pan and a tortilla to make a world-class bar-style pizza in under 12 minutes - Even the simplest of home cooks can make this one. Looks very tasty.

Back in a bit...

I'm a little behind on some school work, so I'll be back in a bit.

The Marvel cinematic universe may be going downhill

You would think common sense would tell you that...

• Getting the basics on Scottish insults - Love the accent
• Emblems of belief approved for use on US government headstones - I think Grandpa has #1, but I find the options (Thor's Hammer?) fascinating.
• Doing pregnancy announcements the right way - Chucklesome...but I'm still happy I don't have to make one.
• Apple's new U2 removal tool - That would be great for U2. 

• 34 people who saw a statue and knew what they had to do - cute ideas
• Lego for girls AT-AT - That would be a great set.
• Anonymous gods - The auto-blur feature is interesting.
• Batman, because he's the hero Gotham deserves - great Lego creation...very creative parts use
• Dances with quadcopters - Pretty work 

• Wildfire in Yosemite Valley - Sometimes disaster yields gorgeous photography.
• Kim Keever - and sometimes great art comes from mixing colorful liquids...
• Fauns have to eat lunch, too - Great film 
• Houses of the Holy - nice paint job

• 13 Misconceptions about Global Warming - 
• 24 Dangerous Toys from Past and Present - I bought my sister one of those, the SkyDancer.
• Hear Richard Thompson lead his family through 'One Life at a Time' - A family album? Intriguing. 
• Toy Story That Time Forgot - Cute...but branding...

• Toothpaste for Dinner - So, that's how the cricket chirps to temperature conversion works?
• Color - I'm stuck on level 23...can't get it any further.
• Candy corn - pretty corn 
• Brilliant packaging for invisible clear tape - I have a couple of banks in my classroom that use this same trick.
• SMBC - I would review a bunch of things if this were the case.
• Harry Potter Today -  I would follow this is if I were on Twitter.
• 30 very best restaurants (in Cincy) - I want to check out a bunch of these.
• These 32 pranks are equally awesome and awful - I like these in theory, but I wouldn't want to experience any of them.
• Curt Flood's monopoly man - Interesting...why that card?
• Frightening solo hiking trip - That would be terrifying.
• The 23 weirdest movies and what they mean - I've seen #18,17, 14, 5, 4, 3, and 1.
• Blue ball machine - It's not what I expected it to be, but it's fun to watch.
• Three peculiar routes to a batting title - Sadly, Josh (the PHS grad in the story) is fading a bit toward the line.

Update: A gag that never gets old

Nine times on film/video/acetate/digital medium, eh? Source

Have some faith

A redditor recently posted a story about the College of Faith and University of Faith, two 'schools' that seem to exist only on the football field to be straw men to larger, DII, DIII, and NAIA actual schools.

Some highlights from the post...

“College of Faith football program is in its 2nd year of college football. We don't have S.A.T. or G.P.A. academic eligibility requirements. Our football program competes against NCAA D2, D3 and NAIA schools. We are looking for some IMPACT players of all sizes to help grow this great program into something special. College of Faith academic programs is a Christ-centered, online college of higher education which main office is in West Memphis, Ark with an extension campus located in Charlotte, NC. College of Faith’s Charlotte extension campus provides Athletic program, academic and student support with christian understanding, hands on ministry outreach and paid On-The-Job STUDENT WORK experience while obtaining a certification or degree.” —Coach Dell Richardson

...

Are they diploma mills that take advantage of kids who want to play college ball but simply can't elsewhere? Are they colluding with the school (being paid) or, worse, being taken advantage because they are desperate for a chance to make in in college ball but will have no chance under their programs, academically or athletically? Or is it possible that the idea of slapping a rudimentary online school onto a football team has created a school that means well but is, in practice, a sham?

To some extent, I'm impressed that the level of discussion on the Reddit post stayed pretty high-brow.

What if Randall Munroe met Stephen Colbert?

I love xkcd like nobody's business. I even have a hoodie from their online store and own Randall's first book just because I wanted to support the man.

That being said, he's not the best interview on the planet.

How to make a tiny forest (without the 'how to' part)

I want to know how to do this, but the video - titled 'how to' - doesn't have a single bit of actual 'how to'.

Their website offers services but not things I can do myself.

:(

Keep your eyes above the waves

• Coyote call - creepy, man
• More astronomy photographer of the year award winners - gorgeous photographs
• LotR-themed cake topper - sadly, Calen isn't getting married anytime soon

• An awesome neighbor built this golf ball roller coaster so people in his neighborhood could play it - can we shorten the headline a bit, please?
• As Scotland decides it fate, a new hero emerges: The Scotsman - Thistle missles!
• License to Ill - The Beastie Boys seem so far into the past now. 

• College Humor ruins "Under the Sea" with "Under the Deep Sea" - surprisingly SFW
• Wonderful story by Redditor BaseAttackBonus about a Dungeons and Dragons character who finds an unhatched T-Rex egg - brilliant
• Dolly Parton's "Jolene" slowed down sounds like a different song (and awesome) -  Yup, it does.

• How not to teach climate change - We have to teach it, and we have to figure out how.
• The unaired SNL sketch from Nasim Pedrad - Aziz Ansari, always funny  The easy, pull-apart pepperoni garlic knots that will forever change how you entertain - I want these, please.
• SoundOpinons: Episode 460 - in which they interview Tweedy and hear the band perform
• Reynoldsburg superintendent "It Was a Successful Day" - I don't think it was.
• Univision finished its version of Breaking Bad in less than four months - Don't ruin it for me. I'm in the midst of season four of the original.
• So you like flavor? Don't soak your black beans -  I dig the Food Lab.
• Jerry "The King" Lawler owns a Batmobile and drives it around because it's good to be the King - How cool is that?
• How to crash Apple's servers - Let's give this a try, folks.
• 50 Worst Movies Ever Made -  I think I've seen eleven on the list.
• Cute girl recreates Alan Iverson's "Practice" speech - I need to figure out how to embed an instagram video.

The freakiest of trees

The Stanford Tree has gotten even freakier this year.

And I love it...

...love it a whole, whole bunch.

The tongue, the flowered shorts, the gloves, the multi-colored palm tree leaves.

It's spectacular.

Not that the past ones haven't been awesome, though.

I especially dig the gold tree, the red tree, and the one that's mostly trunk just above the red tree.

Love the weirdness.

New music from Jeff Tweedy & son

It's still a week out before my pre-ordered copy of Sukierae shows up, but now I can listen to the full album thanks to NPR.

You should do the same.

Jimmy, it'll all work out for the best...a fresh start

• About 500 QI buzzers - I watched about five minutes of the full thing...funny
• Seven mildly convenient mutant powers - I'd take most of those.
• Joseph Gorgon Levitt & who really cases about anybody else -  Sometimes I just watch this for the last minute or so because it's awesome sauce.

Looking back FROM the 80's

Looking back FROM the 80's from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

Looking back at the 80's isn't a challenge. Right now, with so many children of the 80's in prime buying power age, nostalgia for the 80's is all over the place.

Today, however, I'm looking back and remembering that during the 80's people were already looking back even further. Phil Collins was singing "You Can't Hurry Love." Billy Joel was suggesting that we all "Tell Her About It." The Honeydrippers were asking if we remembered when we met.

And through it all, the stars of that era were looking back on the music from their childhood that they loved so much.

I'm always looking for artists and songs to add to this list, too, because it's not one I've ever figured out how to search for online. Anything with 80's nostalgia just gets me playlists that are like shooting fish in a barrel: A-Ha, Cyndi Lauper, so many easy to list 80's stars...but that's not what I'm looking for here. I'm looking for the 50s and early 60s as filtered through the stars of the 80s.

(Oh, and I wanted to include "Tell Her About It", "Uptown Girl", and "The Longest Time" by Billy Joel, but 8tracks only allows two songs per artist. So I had to cut one.)

Today's random ten...

In honor of nothing... from PHSChemGuy on 8tracks Radio.

Today's manicured, 'random' ten songs...

• "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy - This is a horrific, guilty pleasure. I love this horrible song like nobody's business. I swear I've played it in class a half dozen times over the years - the video, not just the song. I love it and hate it in equal measure. I did that just this past week, in fact.
• "Soul Man" by Sam & Dave - Great song...horrible 80's race-switching movie
• "Silver Thunderbird" by Marc Cohn - His entire career can be boiled down into one spectacular, eponymous album. I have no idea why nothing else ever matched up to it, but at least he made one perfect album. In the twenty-five years since then, he's released four middling albums...that's all.
• "Warrior" by Steve Earle - ...not my favorite of his stuff...for spoken word, Steve Earle, I'll actually take "Down Here Below", but even the worst Steve Earle is still pretty outstanding.
• "Daybreak" by Harry Nilsson - I always flash back to the first time I heard anything that I knew as being by Harry Nilsson, when The Girl was house-sitting for a teacher in New Albany - actually at a house out on the hill in the country a bit - and I stayed with her for the couple of nights. We were in college, home for the summer, and it was one of my first feelings of being an adult. Coincidentally, she'd checked out Nilsson's phenomenally great two-disc greatest hits. I've loved it ever since.
• "My Best Friend's Girl" by The Cars - This one makes me think of the first time The Girl and I went to Eli's BBQ only a year and a half ago now. They had The Car's first album playing, and I remembered that it's a pretty great album.
• "Jungle Love" by The Steve Miller Band - Welcome to WNAS, 88.1 FM, New Albany, Indiana in 1991 or so. This was a staple of the then-cd library from which we could choose music when I got my first radio dj time. I'm not as big a fan of "The Joker" and would go against the grain of lots of the other staffers and play this one instead.
• "Sweet Thing" by Van Morrison - The Girl can't stand Van's more meandering songs on Astral Weeks, and that makes her miss out on this really, really nice song - and the rest of a pretty great album if you ask most folks. Then again, though, I'm down with Phillip Glass, too, and he tends to be a bit repetitive.
• "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by the Vanilla Fudge - Ah, heavy psychedelic rock...so very much a defining part of an era. I came to this one via the 80's cover from Kim Wilde and only much later found out that it goes back to the Fudge and the Supremes. You could always count on Holland-Dozier-Holland to write a song that sounds outstanding in just about any version, any style, any era.
• "A.F.U. (Naturally Wired)" by Van Hagar - Thank you, Josh Hoepner. Josh was in various middle school classes with me and brought me to the post-Diamond Dave incarnation of Van Halen, admittedly my preferred incarnation of the band. 5150 and 0U812 were heavy topics of conversation in 7th grade study hall, and both albums have stayed in my good graces for nearly thirty years since then.

Enjoy, everybody...

Update: QuizMeUp

I've been playing QuizUp since Spring Break this past school year.

As of late last week (when I typed this up), I'd played 3887 games...at a minute per game, that's...um...that's...that's sixty-four hours of QuizUp-ing since then...2.6 full days...a lot of time, in other words.

But I'm happy with my efforting because I'm rolling in the achievements. Take a look at my stats, folks...

I'm clearly way better at some categories (those up near the top: name the element, periodic table, chemistry, movies: general, batman, grammar) than I am some of those that I had to scrape to get across the level 15 barrier (like British Royals, oddly Queen, Bob Dylan for heaven's sake).

The reason for the large number of categories with exactly level fifteen is because many of the achievements require getting to level fifteen in two entirely unrelated categories. For example, to get the GoKart Motzart achievement badge, I had to get to level fifteen both in Classical music and in Formula 1 racing. A number of those took just forever to earn...but earn them I did.

I've highlighted the six achievements that I don't have yet. One, Slam Poet, is the next one for me. It requires me to get to level fifteen in both Poetry and MMA. I know almost nothing at all about MMA, so that's going to take a while, and I know only a very little about Poetry, so that'll take a while, too.

Avatar will require me to get level sixty in five more categories. I'm guessing that'll be Movies: General, Batman, Grammar, and...I don't know about the other two. That'll take a while.

Unstoppable takes 10,000 games played. I'm about 40% there. Praetorian is about the same but with 10,000 victories, so that'll be a little longer. Both will take a long while to earn.

The others are Wandering Explorer - play in four countries - and In Orbit - play in ten countries. I've - according to the game, at least - played in three countries so far. I have no clue what those countries are other than the US. I have played as though I am in other countries, changing my flag to various nations in order to play people in different countries for the UN Assembly achievement.

I'm up to 104 ribbons or whatevers earned, but most of them come as being the best in the Seychelles for some month. It's kind of cheating by choosing to be 'from' the Seychelles. The average points per game of 112 is a bit of a drop from the 114 from before I went after the last couple of achievement badges - GoKart Motzart and a couple of others that took efforting.

So, if you're going to challenge me, feel free to do so by helping me work toward an achievement. Hit me up on Poetry, MMA, Batman, General Knowledge, Movies: General, Batman Movies, or Grammar. Bring it on.

Federer is thinking I might want to regroup here

• This is what happens when Robert Downey, Jr arrives in South Korea - The man is famous.
• Walk this way - How did the bridge get so clear ahead of the deer?
• Crazy man hikes into an active volcano -  Crazy but awesome