Dan in the Life

briefcase alternates

2009-03-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

i hate it when people with their luggage-style rolling backpack/briefcases get in my way. these things are so annoying. when passing the airport metro stop i think of saying to them--"hey, this is your stop. you're traveling, right?" oh, no, you just require wheels to transport your things to and from work. it might be understandable if they had a bad back or shoulder or something. i doubt that tough.

March Madness

2009-03-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I blogged about being able to do well in the your NCAA tourney bracket pool. My standards then hold true still. No upsets for seeds 1-4 in the first round and pick whatever teams you thought played best during the conference tournaments to go to the final four. pretty simple really.

pistons and allen iverson

2009-03-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

the pistons are 22-28 with allen iverson starting. they are 8-1 without him starting. of the 8-1, they are 2-0 with billups and 6-1 with rodney stuckey. if these statistics are significant (update 3/7/2009, see comment by Mike, it is significant), it is clear that allen iverson should be demoted to sixth man when he comes back from his current injury.

there is good news for pistons fans though--iverson said that he will do whatever it takes to help the pistons win a championship, "regardless if [he is] starting or coming off the bench."

note: allen iverson is second all-time in points per game, next to michael jordan. if this isn't a sign that his career is winding down, i don't know what is. nonetheless, pistons fans will be happy if he sticks to his word and takes his proper role for the pistons playoff/championship run.

irish american

2009-02-24T17:15:00.000-08:00

here is a US census bureau site that has some facts about irish americans

the economy and foreclosures

2009-02-24T16:01:00.001-08:00

the economy is bad right now. which is why i wish i was three years ahead in my education practicing and bankruptcy law

world traveling

2009-02-24T15:59:00.000-08:00

traveling in different countries is invaluable, but kids--don't forget how diverse your own country is! don't overlook it when decided on a trip destination.

cold weather

2009-02-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

i don't mind the weather being cold necessarily, but i wish it would be more consistent. one day it's 65, two days later back to 20. these large fluctuations remind of oprah and the way she constantly changes her hair style

television commercials

2009-02-23T18:24:00.001-08:00

tv ads suck. i've noticed more often recently that when i'm watching a show and a commercial comes on and i go to a different channel, there is more often than not a commercial on that channel too.

tv networks are conspiring to get viewers to watch more commercials

oscar coverage

2009-02-23T17:48:00.000-08:00

please refer to my good friend's blog for (what was) live coverage of the awards.

he watched it so we don't to

washington, dc

2009-02-23T17:43:00.001-08:00

a lot of white people wearing suits

slam dunk competition

2009-02-15T04:31:00.000-08:00

i was happy with the dunks of this years NBA all star slam dunk competition, but wasn't happy with the results. the judges were clearly biased toward dwight howard, and the best dunk of the night, rudy fernandez's second, was only given a 42.

update

2009-02-02T10:33:00.000-08:00

here is an article updating last week's post on altering road signs

road signs

2009-01-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

this site has some information on how to solve construction-caused traffic jams (or create one of your own!).

place names

2009-01-25T18:14:00.000-08:00

some humorous place names in the UK include: Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent.

see article here

one that i think of off hand is colon, michigan. what can you contribute to this enlightening discussion sweeping the web?

jim carrey a professional basketball coach?

2009-01-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

i've been doing some detective work and have come to the conclusion that jim carrey has been coaching professional basketball under the name "rick carlisle" for the last several years. evidence includes jim carrey's films from the past decade being filmed exclusively during the NBA's offseason (see: imdb) and conclusive photo evidence that proves this.

wal mart

2009-01-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

I came across this on wal-marts web site:

"We also offer a long-term service award, which rewards hourly associates and assistant managers who have been with the company for 20 years or more with an extra week of pay."

that seems like some great incentive to start working at wal mart: 20 years in exchange for an extra $400. Not bad.

cold weather

2009-01-16T07:56:00.000-08:00

the weather is cold in michigan now and there is a lot of snow. sometimes i wonder why humans settled in areas that get like this. but, i guess it's better than having hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes. what do you think? would you exchange a temperate year-round climate for an occasional natural disaster? what places might have the best of both worlds?

a message to tv advertisers

2009-01-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

just because i watch TV during the daytime does not mean that i am old, need medications or weight loss pills. nor does it mean that i was injured on the job, lost my job, or need a lawyer for any of these things. also, i am not interested in a money clip that is half an inch thick or a cloth that can replace all my paper towels. i might watch a half hour long infomercial about a carpet cleaner, but i would never buy it even if you double the size of the order, cut the price in half, throw in a couple free gifts, or even give me a thirty day money-back guarantee. get your demographics straight.

Cost of Life

2008-12-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) refused to delay the progression of cancer in Bruce Hardy's body by 6 months for the cost of $54,000. They said, "Mr. Hardy’s life is not worth prolonging." I guess this institute isn't so "nice" after all.

last names

2008-11-03T19:45:00.001-08:00

women should take their husband's last name because their kids will need an answer to that classic security question, mother's maiden name

progression of society

2008-10-14T20:33:00.001-07:00

darwinism says that the human race evolves. from what i can tell, this is true; we have developed new technologies, medicines, philosophical theories, etc. the aforementioned things suggest that evolution is good, that we are improving as a society. can you think of some areas in which evolution may not necessarily be an improvement? comment with ideas. to get it started, do you think music is improving as it evolves, or have we already seen "the best"?

names of sports

2008-10-09T10:46:00.001-07:00

soccer gets its name from its official name, association football. association is abbreviated "assoc." and since "asser" or "ass ball" wouldn't have been a good name they went with "soccer."

october

2008-10-02T12:48:00.001-07:00

it's october now, so octoberfest had better look a little different than this (when my brother and i visited in may):

free food

2008-10-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

is free food better than food you have to pay for? using my economics skills, i can say that it definitely is. all one has to do is subtract the benefit you get out of a certain food from its cost to you.

for example, if you pay $1 for a slice of pizza and you would have been willing to pay as much as $2 for the slice, then you have a net gain of $1 of benefit (called consumer surplus). however, if the pizza were free, you would get the same $2 benefit out of the slice. since $2>$1, free food is better than food you pay for, ceteris paribus.

this shows that something can be better because it's free, but doesn't show that it can be good because it's free.

Badger Day

2008-09-25T13:12:00.000-07:00

Badger Day is on Saturday and it's getting a lot of attention. They say you're supposed to say "badger" as many times--no matter what context. Have fun badgin' on Saturday!

paradox of good taste

2008-09-20T09:13:00.001-07:00

if a man guarantees that a hamburger will be good and puts $1000 on the guarantee there is no way to prove him wrong. if you say the hamburger is good, he will agree with you and he won't have to pay you the $1000. but if you say the hamburger is bad, he still won't have to pay because he knows you're lying; he knows the hamburger is good based on his guarantee. for this reason, there is no way to prove someone that guaranteed something wrong.

paradox of waking up your neighbors

2008-09-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

if your neighbor wakes you up there is no reason to tell them to stop doing whatever it is woke you up because you are already awake. for this, there is no reason to ever speak with your neighbor about waking you up.

time travel

2008-09-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

to experience life in the past one doesn't need a time machine, one just needs to travel to a lesser developed area like a poor country.

to experience life in the ice ages, one just needs to travel to northern canada.

to experience life in the future, one just needs to go to japan.

me waterskiing

2008-09-15T10:33:00.001-07:00

Studying

2008-09-15T08:31:00.001-07:00

one sees this all too often at libraries at U-M

my blackberry

2008-09-14T10:36:00.001-07:00

you'll notice i've been using pictures in my blog lately. this is because i just got a blackberry--fully equipped with a 2 mega pixel camera (almost worth the cost on its own). i'll keep posting if you keep reading

Mr. Mustache On Or Off

2008-09-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

mustache man a la beard

Undergraduate Admissions Office?

2008-09-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

it looks to me like the state budget cuts have really affected the public universities . . . .

student groups

2008-09-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

student groups are mostly for people to join and do nothing and put the title on their resume. not me, i join for the interesting lectures, free food, and occasional free clothing.

i'm interrupting my simpsons marathon with a trip to a student group's mass meeting. it should provide some appetizers at least, and you know what they say about appetizers, if you eat enough of them you don't have to eat a real meal

classes

2008-09-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

classes have begun and i can't seem to stop watching the simpsons. i rented a season today and i have to return it by wednesday . . . i've gotta get to work

Casino

2008-08-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

My friend and I were on our way home from a friend's house the other day and it occurred to me that there was a casino in the area. I said to him, "So, what do you feel like doing now?" He replied, "I'm not sure, how do you feel?" I said, "Good, I'm not tired or anything." When he said, "How much money do you have on you?", I started ROTFL and knew then that we had to go to the casino. We play craps now and have a lot of fun doing it. I used to play blackjack but that game sucks and the dealers are ass holes. Now we play craps and play it well.

ATMs

2008-08-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

I was at the bowling alley yesterday for Monday bowling and there was an ATM there that wasn't associated with any bank. Where there would normally be a bank logo, there was only written "Get Cash Fast." I thought this was funny because if one were to not know what an ATM was or not have an ATM card, they would not only be unable to "get cash fast," but also probably very confused by this. In addition, this was right next to a lotto ticket dispenser. This might give one the impression that the ATM is some sort of slot machine or gambling device. I guess it's a good thing I'm not an idiot.

Books

2008-07-30T20:20:00.000-07:00

On top of cassette tapes, one of my hobbies is old books. I don't mean books that were written a long time ago. I mean books that were printed a long time ago (and more than likely also written a long time ago). Books that make you wanna say, "I don't wanna touch that book because I think its cover is going to fall off if I touch it."

Casette Tapes

2008-07-27T20:37:00.001-07:00

I haven't used my iPod in about a month. Even though I have a cassette adapter for my car (my car doesn't have a CD player) I haven't been using it. I've been taking advantage recently of my new-found hobby of collecting old tapes. Some people collect and enjoy listening to records--not for me. Tapes are the way of the '90s, my golden years.

Salsa Night

2008-07-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Some friends and I were going to salsa night at a Cafe Habana. I was the first to get there because I'm not cool, so had to awkwardly ask the maitre d' if it was salsa night--she didn't know what I was talking about so sent me to the roof where they serve drinks and have the band Rojo Loco play on Fridays. There, I had to awkwardly wait around for a table to clear up. This wasn't difficult when the wind picked up and everyone left because it was about to rain.

My friends got there and I ordered a carafe of sangria, about four glasses worth. It turns out it was only me and a female coworker that wanted any of the sangria so I told the waitress to just bring two glasses instead. She was visually upset--I'm guessing because her tip took a hit at that point. To sum up, it started raining so we went inside where I finished my glass of sangria and, after about an hour, the person I was with finished about a quarter of hers. Good thing we didn't order the carafe!

Crosswords

2008-07-27T20:26:00.001-07:00

I try to do crosswords but am not too good at them. That's why I enjoy playing on USA Today or LA Times online crosswords, because they allow you to just put in a bunch of letters in a spot until it changes from red to black, which means it's the correct letter. They also allow you to solve for words or letters, making it really easy to finish the crossword quickly. In conclusion, while crosswords in newspapers may be fun at times or maybe even nostalgic, online crosswords are the way of the future.

Banking

2008-07-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

I decided I want to be a banker. Not only did I decide that I want to be a banker, I decided that I've always wanted to be a banker. Some inspiration comes from this site that features some of the intricacies of being a banker.

Bowling

2008-07-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

I've been bowling on Mondays lately and have seen some improvement in my game. I thought briefly about joining a league but then remembered that bowling is kind of dumb and that I only do it when there is cheap alcohol associated.

The Beach

2008-06-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

I've been spending some time on the beach lately. I went water skiing earlier but I couldn't go for too long because the only skis I had were originally designed for the snow.

Winning Your Office Pool

2008-03-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

I enjoy watching the NCAA tournament even though I normally go an entire regular season without watching a game. Surprisingly, I'm always at the vanguard of points scorers amongst my friends. I've won pools 3 of the last 5 years and this year I'm 3rd in mine with all the final four teams so far--not meaning to brag. My point is, if you pick all the top teams and then guess for the final four and final round game (what I do), there is no way you will do bad in your bracket. You will probably be at the forefront like me, and every now and then you will win.

The Winner is the Environment

2008-03-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

These toilets are very cool looking and good for the environment, too! I wouldn't use one though because I like my toilets to make a big sucking noise when I flush.

The Winner Was Tennis

2008-03-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Federer defeated Sampras, but we all know that this was just an exhibition match. It would be impossible to tell who is the better tennis player, with Sampras 10 years out of his prime, but we can take away that this was a really historic moment in sports. It raises the question: what could be some other matchups between a current great and the greatest of all-time? Ideas . . . ?

Lesbos

2008-03-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

Lesbos is a Greek island. It is famous for its petrified forest.

Nadal Closes in on Federer

2008-03-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

Here is an article that gives the break-down of how close Rafael Nadal is to overtaking Roger Federer's number one ranking in pro tennis, where Federer has been for four years.

IWBTG Update 2

2008-03-06T14:05:00.001-08:00

So, 45 minutes of play time and 415 deaths of my character later, I have managed to get past the first stage (I'm right after the green giant that looks like a cross between the Hulk and Mr. T). That means I'm about 5:15 through this video. In other words, what it took the guy in the video 5 minutes 15 seconds to do, it took me 45 minutes. He didn't die at all, I died 415 times. To my credit, I was able to get to the final guy (saved game 2 in the picture) in only 9 minutes with 74 deaths when I tried it again, so I think once you make your way through the game, it's easy to go back and do it again in a timely manner (a great way to impress your friends!).

IWBTG Update 1

2008-03-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

I hate this game. Just kidding. Actually, I have made decent progress. After getting past the first few scenes (watch the video from the previous post to see what I'm talking about) I seem to have gotten the hang of the controls and character movements.

A basic overview of what I have learned so far: the game is simple in theory--only two buttons other than the directional controls ("Shift" and "Z"), only one of which I have actually needed so far (the jump button, shift). There are a lot of surprises and new elements in each scene, i.e. sticky walls that you need to jump off and cannons not unlike those of the Mario games. Your character dies a lot, especially when just starting a new scene when you're trying to figure out the new elements of it. This can be very frustrating. However, there are fairly frequent save points (depending what difficulty you're playing on, I'm on medium) which reduces the amount of time spent playing the same scene you just spent 20 minutes figuring out how to conquer. You can also quickly return to your last save point by pressing the reset button ("R").

This game is frustrating, but if you're patient and willing to learn from your mistakes (not a bad life lesson here) you will be able to manage. I'll continue to keep playing, probably mostly during class, and I'll post if I manage to find my way towards the end of the game.

I Wanna Be The Guy

2008-03-05T14:38:00.000-08:00

I Wanna Be The Guy is a game my friend told me about today. It's supposedly the hardest video game to master ever created. I believe it. Watch this video. Here is the site from which the game can be downloaded. I can beat the original Mario in under 10 minutes, so I'm interested in seeing if I can manage to get a handle for this game. I'm downloading it right now, and plan on posting my progress with the game throughout the next few days. Wish me luck!

What are you looking for in a poker chip?

2008-03-04T18:21:00.001-08:00

That's what I'm talking about.

Baby Names

2008-03-04T08:11:00.001-08:00

Several books and websites, such as this one, provide lists of names for babies. I don't understand, though, why they consistently feel the need to specify that these names are "baby names" as opposed to just "names" or "name ideas." Will the child change his or her name when he or she arrives at a certain age? Are the names only good for a few years? Gweneth Peltrow named her daughter Apple. I propose that this is an example of a baby name, as the child will surely go through mockery in school. Apple is a name that is only good for a couple years.

Movies

2008-03-02T13:36:00.001-08:00

A blog I frequent has begun reviewing the AFI top 100 movies of all-time. To contrast, I think it would be interesting for someone to review some of the worst 100 movies as rated by IMDB users. For starters, From Justin to Kelly is the number 13 on the list. This is a fun flick--in many parts it's so stupid it's actually laugh out loud funny. Whoever said American Idols could only sing?

Wendy's

2008-03-02T13:27:00.000-08:00

I went to Wendy's the other day and ordered two cheeseburgers deluxe. I ate the first one and proceeded to the next. The second was good, but not as good as the first. Initially, I thought this could just be a case of the law of diminishing returns. Actually, the second cheeseburger didn't have any cheese or any burger. This is why it tasted different. Not bad, just different.

Log-bay

2008-03-02T13:25:00.000-08:00

I used to have a blog but then got rid of it. I have decided that there are too many things, though, that the world needs to know about that are only perceived through my eyes.