One of perhaps a handful of stories that brings tears to my eyes when I read it is Isaac Asimov’s “The Bicentennial Man”. I have read it at least three times by actual count (most recently this evening) and it is one of the more remarkable, moving stories I have ever read. I wish I could write like that.
Month: April 2006
Right up my alley
Okay, for those of you who know me, you’ll understand. I came across this website via Digg.com this morning, and it’s right up my alley.
Trip to the Yard 2006
Each year I have had my season tickets to the Orioles, I have made a CD for the trip to and from the Yard. Of course, this year, wthout a radio in my car, I can’t listen to the CD on the way, but I nonetheless felt it was important to keep up the ritual and so I have created a “Trip to the Yard 2006” CD. In past years, I have strayed somewhat from cliche and traditional, but this year, I felt the need to come back home and make it a bit more traditional. Here’s the playlist:
1. Baseball–Home Run (Sound Effects)
2. William Tell Overture (London Symphony Orchestra)
3. Willie, Mickey, and “The Duke” (Talkin’ Baseball) (Terry Cashman)
4. The Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzy)
5. Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen)
6. Tessie (Dropkick Murphys)
7. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Jimmy Buffett)
8. Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)
9. All Star (Smash Mouth)
10. Catfish (Bob Dylan)
11. Centerfield (John Fogerty)
12.Right Field (Peter, Paul and Mary)
13. Enter Sandman (Metallica)
14. New York, New York (Frank Sinatra)
Warning!
In the 18 years 1 month and 1 day that I have been driving a car, I have not received so much as parking ticket. Until yesterday. Yesterday evening, while racing to the airport (after being stuck in traffic) to meet my Dad’s flight, I got picked up on laser doing 50 in a 35 zone. It was completely and totally my fault and I expected to be ticketed for speeding. Lucky for me, the officer let me go with a written warning. In Maryland, a warning is just that–no fine, no points–just a record that I was stopped. So my own record stays in tact. For now.
Airport Extreme
I finally got around to purchasing an Airport Extreme base station today to replace my old wireless. My primary motivation was twofold. First, since I have all Macs at home now, I wanted the Apple base station. Second, I lost the CD’s to my old wireless router and had no way of enabling encryption. Now that I have my base station, my home network is finally encrypted.
DirecTV followup
Two days ago, I grumbled about the MLB Extra Innings broadcast of the Yankee game going out at exactly 11 PM in the middle of the bottom of the 10th inning. I was fuming and emailed DirecTV. Today I got a response, and it was friendly and specific enough that it satisfies me.
It’s Friday!
Yes, I am having a massive banana split sans nuts for lunch. But hey, that’s what Friday’s are for!
Stuck in a loop
I have been listening to the William Tell Overture all morning and each time the tune ends, I simply start it over again from the beginning. For some reason, the beginning makes me laugh. It’s becoming some kind of strange obession and I can’t seem to stop. Help!
“Relatively” cheap gas?
I don’t put gas in my car much any more. In fact, I average 41 days between refuels, which suits me and my wallet just fine. However, I drive past my local gas station on the way to the train station each morning, and I take mental note of the price of gas. I believe I have noted a strange phenomenon–one that presents a chink in the armor of gas pricing.
Ordinarily, the price of the three types of gasoline sold at the station near my house differ by about 10 cents each. Thus, if 87 octane is $2.50, 89 octane is $2.60 and 92 octane is $2.70. Now let’s set aside for the moment why anyone who doesn’t drive a Ferrari would buy anything other than 87 octane gasoline and instead focus on price differentials. These differences are for the most part, consistent from station-to-station across the board. The differences would imply higher manufacturing costs and/or lower demands for the higher octane gasoline, which is priced higher because of its better “anti-knock” quality.
This morning, however, when I passed my local station, I noted the prices were as follows:
87 octane: $3.11
89 octane: $3.25
92 octane: $3.29
This is suspicious to me. Why, I asked myself, has 89 octane suddenly become “cheaper” relative to 92 octane? Where before, there was always a consistent 10 cents difference, this morning there was only a 4 cents difference between the two flavors. One might argue that it is because the price of gas is high to begin with and this is a way of making the higher octane gasoline more palatable to the ignorant consumer who would buy it in the first place.
But I ask, if one octane level can be priced only 4 cents cheaper than another, doesn’t that imply that there really isn’t much of a difference in the manufacturing and production costs in the first place? Does that seem to indicate that the pricing of gasoline is much more arbitrary than what the oil companies would have us believe?
I don’t know. Maybe I am missing something. Afterall, economics was never a strong suit of mine. But it sure seems suspicious and I wonder why more people don’t pick this up. (Of course, you have to be able to subtract two numbers in your head in order to recognize this, so that might explain why.)
Adopt-a-library
Smithsonian Institution, of which I am a national member, has a program called “Adopt-a-library” to which I have been contributing for several years now, and today I mailed in a check to “re-adopt” two libraries for the coming year. The program provides the libraries with subscriptions to NATURAL HISTORY magazine for a full year. It doesn’t cost very much money ($18 per library) and it really helps libraries, whose funds are always being cut these days.
For the past three or four years now, I’ve adopted to the two libraries that had the greatest impact on me:
1. The Franklin Township Library in Somerset, New Jersey. This is the first public library I ever attended and it was this library that introduced me to science and astronomy through a book called The Nine Planets by Franklyn Mansfield Branley. I checked this book out of the library repeatedly and read it until I had the book memorized. It is because of this book that I learned to love science, astronomy and science fiction and for that I am forever grateful. Imagine if that library were not there when I was 6 or 7 years old!
2. The Granada Hills Public Library in Granada Hills, California. This was the first library for which I had a library card of my very own. I spent a lot of time in this library, checking out books, and reading books. I loved it. I would go there, and check out books, and then read them while I walked home (about a mile). I was free to roam about the library and no one was telling me what I could and could not read, and so I sampled a bit of everything that attracted my twelve-year-old attention. (Yes, including that famous book Girls and Sex which I read with fascination over a period of several Saturdays in a cubicle at the library because I was too afraid to bring it up to the front desk to check it out.
There are lots of great library programs out there. Support them if you can!
Blood pressure update
Exactly one month ago, I visited the doctor for a checkup and reported that I had “elevated” blood pressure. At the time, my blood pressure was 138/88 and I was told that for someone of my age/health, it should be around 115/75. I immediately cut my sodium intake somewhat and also have started to run again over the last 30 days.
Today, I had my follow up appointment and when my blood pressure was taken today, it was a cool 118/74. That’s not bad aim, considering I had no idea if I was running enough or cutting back on the sodium intake enough. As much as I’d like to say I planned it, it really was blind luck. In any event, my doctor was happy with the results and I am too, although I take it with a grain of salt (no pun intended). After all, last time could have been a fluke high, or today could have been a fluke low.
Ahhhhhhhh!
It was the bottom of the 10th inning, 2 outs, and Jeter was at the plate. Yanks down 4-2 and two men on base. The clock struck 11 PM on the east coast–and the channel on which I was watching the game (one of the MLB Extra Inning channels I get on DirecTV) went black with a message that this programming wasn’t available in my area. The game ended 5 minutes later and the Yankees lost. At that point, the channel came back on just fine. So essentially, I missed the most important part of the game. It was a little suspicious that this happened at the top of the hour exactly.
Well! I just sent an email to DirecTV customer support that breathes flame. I pleaded with them to have someone who is a baseball fan read the email message so that they can empathize with my frustration. I asked for a discount or some kind of refund for the five minutes and told them in all seriousness that I didn’t care if they gave me a 5-cent discount, but that they owned me for this. Finally, I asked them to let me know exactly what steps they are taking to prevent this from happening again.
There is nothing more frustrating than investing 4 hours in a game and missing the crucial last 5 minutes. I don’t really expect to get an answer but the fact that this happened upset me far more than the fact that the Yankees ended up losing the game.
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