“Maverick”

I don’t really know which way elementalgeek readers lean in terms of political identity, but this was too funny to pass on. If you’re a republican, hopefully you have enough of a sense of humor to chuckle a bit (while no one’s looking of course).

http://www.palinaspresident.us/

Click on everything you see. Sometimes you get different results if you click on something more than once.

edit: Make sure you have your sound turned on when you go to the site!

And the word of the day is: “Maverick”

Polls schmolls

I heard a story on NPR the other day that said in the last 4 years the percentage of households that have a fixed landline phone has decreased to less than 85%.

I happen to be part of the wireless phone only demographic, having dumped my landline around 7 years ago. Since I carried a wireless phone all the time anyway, it didn’t make sense to pay for the additional phone that hardly anyone called because they always tried the wireless phone first. Pretty much the only calls that came through on the landline were telemarketers or survey-takers, who I didn’t want to talk to anyway.

In election seasons like the one currently being inflicted on us, you’ll hear the results of an endless number of polls: Candidate A is ahead of Candidate B by X points, Y percent of people favor the rights of cats and dogs to cohabitate, Z percent of the population want the government to take away all of our rights for an illusory sense of security. The list goes on and on.

Here’s the part that makes me wonder: Polls largely rely on responses collected during telephone surveys. Landline telephone surveys.

So now the results of any poll you hear about is the result of collecting “data” from people:

That have a landline telephone
AND are home when the pollster calls
AND are willing to respond to pollsters
who may or may not actually have a clue what the hell they’re talking about

Scary huh?

Geek ink

For today’s post, I started and trashed a bunch of things that have been noodling around in my head, mostly because they were too damn serious. I figure that you, my loyal readers (all 3 of you), probably don’t come to elementalgeek to find the answers to the world’s problems or to discover life’s greatest truths, although if I ever do figure those out, you’ll be the first I tell.

Today’s post is just plain geek diversion. While your personal preferences regarding tattoos may vary, the Science Tattoo Emporium shows that just about anything can be “art”.

I keep on thinking I’d like to get a tattoo someday, but I haven’t decided what will still look good on an 80 year old triathlete. Try picturing a tribal armband on an elderly woman for a reality check. Maybe some traditional Japanese artwork – the samurai/yakuza guys still look cool when they get old (or maybe it’s the sword/gun/missing finger)

What (@Not the LG: what else) would you be willing to put on your body permanently?

I want honey in my honey!

It’s been a pretty hectic week and I’ve been craving comfort food, so in a moment of weakness I picked up lunch from KFC recently. While they don’t serve poutine like the Canadian PKF’s (“Poulet Frit du Kentucky”) do, I’m a sucker for the potato wedges.

The new original recipe strip combo meal (is “new” and “original” an oxymoron in this context?) includes a biscuit so I asked for honey to go with it. Here’s the ingredient list for the Colonel’s Honey Sauce:

• High fructose corn syrup
• Sugar
• Honey
• Corn syrup
• Natural flavor
• Caramel color

What the hell is wrong with this picture? Okay, okay… I know I’m not going to get health food at KFC, but c’mon! Is it too much to ask for some honey in my honey?

The packet says that there’s 11% “real” honey. Remember, ingredients are listed in order of percentage of volume so figure the packet is at minimum 66% HFCS and sugar, probably more. Is honey not sweet enough?

One of the reasons I’ve heard for using high fructose corn syrup is that it has a longer shelf life which is why it’s used in so many pre-packaged, highly-processed food items. Even that’s a load of crap – honey is one of the most non-perishable naturally occurring edible substances known to man. Archaeologists found honey in Egyptian tombs that was still edible.

How’d you like to be the team that discovered that by the way?

“Hey, that looks like honey!”
“You think it’s still good?”
“You try it.”
“No way, you try it!”
“I’ll give you a dollar if you eat the mummy honey”
“Shoooots!”

By now you’ve seen the propaganda by the Corn Refiners Association on television that HFCS is “made from corn, doesn’t have artificial ingredients, has the same calories as sugar and just like sugar, it’s fine in moderation.”

Now I’m no scientist, but if that’s true, then why not use oh, I dunno…sugar? Because it’s cheaper, and BFCs like cheaper. They make more money that way.

Oh, and the part about it being fine in moderation? What’s moderate? How can you tell how much you’re getting when HFCS is in everything? Next time you’re shopping, take a look at the ingredient list ofall the packaged goods in the supermarket (except maybe in Whole Foods – see Kendra’s Adventures here). You may be in for a surprise – juice, yogurt, bread, breakfast bars, salad dressing, BBQ sauce…

And now, apparently it’s in honey as well.

Fun allotment

Overheard this weekend at the mall: Exasperated mom to rambunctious child, “If this is your fun now, there’s no fun later when you get home!”

The thought stopped me in my tracks – what if that’s true? What if there’s a limited amount of fun, and that once you use it up there’s no more fun? What if you had a blast whooping it up when you were younger? Are you doomed to a life of dullness forever more?

It’s an insidious notion. That child will probably be hoarding his fun for the rest of his life wondering when he’s going to run out. I’m going to go on the assumption we all have different fun allotments (and that the Mom must have used up all of hers early) or that fun is rechargeable (“sustainable fun”) somehow.

No sense letting good fun go to waste.

Meet TED

A while back I did a strength assessment quiz based on the book by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton called Now, Discover Your Strengths. My top five strengths turned out to be:

1. Maximizer
2. Analytical
3. Intellection
4. Ideation
5. Strategic

Put that all together and what’s that spell? G-E-E-K.

“Ideation” caught my attention, partly because I never thought about it that way, and partly because it rings so true:

You are fascinated by ideas. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. You revel in takiing the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you.

Based on this description, it’s no surprise that one of the coolest sites I’ve ever been turned onto is TED.com. TED features videos of the world’s greatest thinkers presenting their insights on just about everything – technology, science, nature, business, art. The array of selections is pretty mind-boggling.

Even if you don’t explore any further, check out these two:

Ken Robinson on how schools are killing creativity:

Linky to Ken Robinson video on TED.

Tony Robbins on why we do what we do:

Linky to Tony Robbins video on TED.

I’ve got more favorites if anyone’s interested. If you do decide to explore TED, let me know what you find – I’m always looking for more neat ideas.

x-ray vision: ON!

Went for my one month LASIK followup exam. 20/10 vision baby!

At this rate I should be able to see through walls or shoot laser beams out of my eyes by my 3 month follow up visit.

Running enlightenment

Pretty much the only people on the road at 4:30 in the morning are drunken revelers heading home from the clubs or warped folks heading out to an endurance event. Despite our best intentions, it’s been years since egeekette and I have gone clubbing. Instead, this past Sunday morning we were driving the length of Oahu so we could run around in circles for several hours at the Runner’s HI Kalaeloa 20K.

Kalaeloa doesn’t have any street lights and the registration tent was lit by one portable spotlight so there were hundreds of bleary-eyed proto-runner zombies shuffling around in the dark. The good news is that this year there were porta-potties near the start so people didn’t have to pee in the bushes like last year. The bad news is that they were 100 yards down the road from the registration tent. If you were paying attention, you’ll have noticed that that means 100 yards AWAY from the one source of light on that end of the island. And yes, using a porta-potty in pitch blackness is just as bad as you can imagine.

This year the 20K (12.4 miles for the Americans) race was three loops instead of the traditional two. This change meant that I got lapped even earlier than last year by the race leaders and I had to step over the same roadkill (kitty I think – it was hard to tell) 2 more times than I really wanted to.

Each loop became a stage of running enlightenment, just not quite in the right order.

• Loop #1: Darkness (Ignorance) – Where the hell am I going?
• Loop #2: Dawn (Bliss) – Enjoying each moment. Cool morning air and pretty colors in the sky.
• Loop #3: Sunrise (Awareness) – Heat. Pain. This sucks.

I can’t complain too much though. We both survived the run and PR’d the distance to boot. Best of all, we headed over to Jurison’s in Waikele for breakfast afterwards for fried rice omelet with pork adobo and kim chee. Woo hoo!

Breakfast places that don’t cure their own ham

So I don’t just rant about things, I thought it would provide some balance to the universe if I wrote about breakfast places that I DO like. Unless we’re training or doing an event on another part of the island we generally dine in town, so that’s where I’ll start.

Original Pancake House (Kapiolani at Pensacola, Dillingham at Waiakamilo)

Faves: French crepes, blueberry pancakes, canadian bacon

Notes:

• Get there early on weekends (before 9am) or be prepared to wait
• Just found out they’re part of a nationwide chain. With all the aunties that work there, I never would have guessed.

Jack’s (Aina Haina Shopping Center)

Faves: Corned beef hash and eggs

Notes:

• Fast service
• If you get the Jack’s special biscuit, get it grilled for an extra .25. Yummy!

Bogart’s Cafe (Diamond Head on Monserrat)

Faves: Michael’s Scramble (asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, cheese), belgian waffles with various toppings (nutella, strawberries, bananas, coconut syrup)

Notes:

• Do NOT miss the pan fried potatoes!
• Their breakfast bagels also seem to be popular
• Cozy (code word for “really small”)
• Cash only

Big City Diner (Kaimuki and Ward Entertainment Complex)

Faves: Uncle Danny’s Fried Rice, Ani’s Cinnamon Bread French Toast, Apple Pancakes

Notes:

• Wait times for a table can be long but food service is consistently prompt
• Don’t ask Not the LG to breakfast with you at BCD

Mocha Java (Ward Centre)

Faves: Greek frittata (artichoke, feta cheese, kalamata olives), whole wheat pancakes with blueberries

Notes:

• This is the go-to place during the 8am-10am jam times at other breakfast places. We’ve never not been able to find a table.
• Printable coupon for free coffee with purchase at ecouponshawaii

Honorable mention:

• Cheesecake Factory
• Kaka`ako Kitchen

Are you as smart as Dilbert?

One of my favorite non-acquaintance blogs is by Scott Adams. His writing style is very readable and often “hold back the tears as you try to laugh silently because you’re at work” funny, as you would expect from the creator of Dilbert, but can also be about serious stuff as well (saving the planet, world peace, politics, etc). Some of the things he writes about are truly fascinating. Well, fascinating to me at least, but then this is the elementalgeek blog – what do you expect?

In this post he mentions that:

Dilbert has been used in several court cases where an attorney tried to demonstrate the date when obscure technical issues became “common knowledge” and therefore something that a reasonable person should know. The importance in the court cases is that a defendant couldn’t claim ignorance about something that is so widely known it can be included in a Dilbert comic without explanation.

It appeals to my inner geek that a comic strip has become a symbol of human knowledge but also nags at the back of my brain that something so pop-culture is becoming so authoritative. So what do you think? A) Neat, B) troubling or C) egeek has too much time on his hands?