random song o’ the moment

Dec 29th, 2008 Posted in music | one comment »

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHQ_aTjXObs

“Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd

trivial pursuit

Dec 27th, 2008 Posted in currents | no comment »

If you’re looking for something to both occupy your attention and prep you for that stint on Jeopardy!, check out the Amazing Fact Generator… hours of family fun.  So far, my personal favorite for some odd reason is this one:

Colonel Sanders’ finger-lickin’ formula is locked away in a bank vault in Louisville, Ky. In fact, the KFC people are so serious about keeping the ingredients under wraps that two separate companies are used to blend the spices, so neither possesses the complete recipe. 

sibling rivalry

Dec 27th, 2008 Posted in currents | no comment »

This has been studied more extensively elsewhere, but CNN had an article a while back about the personality characteristics and resulting career choices of kids based on their birth order.  We only children seem to make out okay.

close calls

Dec 13th, 2008 Posted in history | no comment »

Everyone knows that if 267 people in Florida had voted differently, Al Gore would have won the 2000 presidential election.  But what about other years?  Here’s a site that answers the general question, “How few people (and in what states) would have needed to vote differently to change the outcome of each election?”  (In 2008, the answer was 445,912 people in seven states.)

new again

Dec 12th, 2008 Posted in currents | 3 comments »

So the fall turned out to be vastly worse than the summer in terms of busy.  At some point I really need to sit down and read the copy of The 4-Hour Workweek that I bought months ago.  But in the meantime, I decided to at least make some aesthetic changes to the site, and move to easier-to-manage software to run it.  Now if I could just find time someday to add new stuff to it more regularly…