These are little random thoughts that cross my mind during the day, and stick around long enough for me to write them down.
September 1: This was originally brought up by a guy at work. You know how a dog will sometimes freak out when it sees another dog? My question is, how does the dog know what other dogs look like? Even if the second dog is a totally different breed, and looks totally different, the dog will still bark at it. Even assuming that the dog sees itself in mirrors at home, that wouldn't tell it what other dogs look like.
September 3: Sitting here in Barnes & Noble, I can see a book in the computer section called Cobol for Dummies. Now, this makes no sense. The Dummies books are for folks who just need to get something done and just don't have the knack to learn whatever it is the conventional way. Now, who in the world would just be starting out using Cobol?
September 4: Whenever there's a TV ad for a baby product (diapers, skin powder, etc.), why do they always show the baby's butt? Geez, have a little taste, please! Kids are annoying enough; I don't want to see some little brat's ass on top of it all.
October 17: On the 10/14 KTLA Morning News, reporter Gayle Anderson did a story about how the restaurant rating system was being reworked to be clearer. Restaurants in the city of LA get graded on a scale of 0 to 100, and must display a sign indicating their grade. The sign shows a grade - A, B, or C - or if the score was less than 70%, the sign shows the exact score. Hello? How much clearer can you get? Do people have that much trouble figuring out if a restaurant with a sign saying, say, "57%" is a good place to eat? Come on.
October 19: Wow, my first company-sponsored business trip. I just realized that I didn't send off my Visa bill payment. I wonder if I can expense the interest my account is going to get.
November 28: How come, no matter how wacked out a bum or drunk is, when they're sitting out on the street, they always have enough wits about them to smoke a cigarette?
December 28: A post of mine from ISCA:
Looking up at the stars at night, I focus on one. It has a slight bluish tint to it. And I think, imagine how far those photons traveled, over unfathomable distances and interminable stretches of time. Traversing the void, unblocked by nebulae, unabsorbed by gas or passing dust. They made it all the way to Earth, contacted it while it moves through its orbit, and by chance landed in Santa Monica, 6 feet above sea level, right on my retina. And there is a constant stream of such photons, all the while the distant star and the Earth continue moving. [Non Sequitur> msg #895460 (0 remaining)] Read cmd ->
September 6, 1999: Another thought about the restaurant health inspection grade signs. Tonight while I was walking past one particular restaurant, I saw an "A" sign in the front window. Trouble is, the sign was obviously a complete fake! The "A" was purple (instead of blue) and the other words were handwritten on the sign! Curiously, the real grade sign (showing a "B") was posted about 15 feet away on another window. I was just thinking that the place would be SO in trouble if this fake sign were ever brought to the attention of the health department.
Also September 6, 1999: I HATE WEB PAGES THAT TURN OFF UNDERLINING OF LINKS. *ahem* sorry, I just had to yell there. Why oh why do dim-witted page authors turn underlining off? The whole point of underlining links is to show that they are, get this, links!! I guess Microsoft started it, since on their pages they do it just to show off the <style> tag capabilities in IE, and everyone else thought that since Microsoft does it, they have to do it too.
Also September 6, 1999: (Man I was thinking a lot today.) The celebrities I have seen at the MGM Plaza (the office complex I work in):
September 12, 1999: How come I can't find just plain ol' rice cakes anymore? Everything is
either honey-nut or buttered-popcorn or chocolate-chip or lots-of-junk-that-masks-the-taste-of-the-rice-cake flavor.