"Profits go down the hole. Bye, bye profits!"

As baby Plucky Duck might say, after pondering this list, compiled by Yahoo! News, of the
eight biggest blunders in the technology industry.

One sign that many of your neighbors are out of town

It's noon on a Sunday, and there are multiple vacant parking spots on my street. With permit restrictions not in force on a Sunday, this normally happens approximately never; yet, somehow, the spots are there, which leads me to conclude that a rather high percentage of my neighborhood has left town for break.

Two sacrileges

1. WWE Smackdown "Christmas from Baghdad." That's all I have to say.
2. Star Trek: Enterprise has the misfortune of using Russell Watson's "Faith of the Heart" as its theme; "Faith of the Heart" has the misfortune to be the song used in the closing credits of the execrable and hideously unfunny Patch Adams. [And to stave off any smart-alecks that may be reading this: no, I did not willingly watch that movie--I had the misfortune of being subjected to it at the video store this week.

Original version?

If the four Gospels in the New Testament purport to be interpretations of the original Gospel, there must have been a whole lot of self-referencing before all the editing--how else to explain how most of the four Gospels are principally biographical?

How's it feel?

ESPN reports that the Yankees spent $68 million more than any other team in baseball last season, incurring an $11.8 million luxury tax in the process--and they didn't even have a World Series victory to show for it. It must really be a thorn in Steinbrenner's side--while Yankee-haters are probably indulging in a nice healthy dose of hubris.

And now for something not-so-completely different

One of the funnier "joke lists" to come my way in recent months, I figured it's worth posting. Note that this list is meant in good humor, and should not be construed as belittling anyone having said disorders.

Christmas Carols for the Psychologically Challenged

• SCHIZOPHRENIA: Do you Hear What I Hear?
  
• MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER: We Three Queens Disoriented Are
  
• DEMENTIA: I Think I'll Be Home for Christmas
  
• NARCISSISM: Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
  
• MANIA: Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Busses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and...
  
• PARANOIA: Santa Claus is Coming to Get Me
  
• PERSONALITY DISORDER: You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll tell you why...
  
• BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire...
  
• DEPRESSION: Silent anhedonia, Holy anhedonia. All is flat, All is pretty lonely.
  
• OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER: Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, ............(oops, better start again)
  
• PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE PERSONALITY: On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me (and then took it all away)
  
• ARSONISM: Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
  
• DRUG-INDUCED GROUP HALLUCINATIONS: Angels We Have Heard So High
  
• DEPRESSION (2): Silent Night, Wholly Night.
  
• POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION: What Child is This?
  
• POST-NASAL DRIP: Greensleeves
  
• KLEPTOMANIA: Check the Halls I've Lost My Dolly.
  
• TRANSVESTISM: Don we now our gay apparel.
  
• INDECISIVENESS: Here we come a-waffling.
  
• SYNESTHESIA: Rudolph the E-flat-Nosed Reindeer
  
• DYSLEXIA: Here Comes Satan Claus
  
• VERTIGO: Fall-la-la-la-la...
  

Still don't see it

So the New York Times had an article this morning about shape-note singing, and talk a little bit about how the shape-note singing method works. What I don't understand, though, is that the shape-notes are placed on the standard staff, which does exactly the same job as using different shapes. It'd make some sense if the system were used in lieu of a standard staff, but just adding it on top makes absolutely no sense. If anybody out there can explain it to me, feel free.

Interesting

Ran into an old college classmate again, who made a very astute observation. Every time we run into each other (a half-dozen or so times in the last year), I have been either buying groceries, or returning from the grocery store. It's really bizarre and improbable, but it's true. . . .

About time

Finally, after so many weeks of rampant speculation and extended deadlines, the A-Rod trade has finally died. [Note to Kevin Millar: keep your mouth shut until the trade has died or gone forward.]

Random thoughts, Return of the King edition

SPOILER WARNING! Fifteen musings, after spending fifteen hours watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy:

• Am I alone in thinking that Andy Serkis was brought on-screen to play Smeagol (before becoming Gollum) for the sole purposes of getting him a Best Supporting Actor nomination?
  
• Stuart Townsend was the original choice for Aragorn? Are you kidding me?
  
• I hate to say it, but many of Legolas's stunts look like CGI effects. For a movie where they work overtime to prevent effects from looking fake, it's a letdown.
  
• On the other hand, the Army of the Dead was almost exactly what I had envisioned, except for their color (I had viewed them as more monochrome than green).
  
• I guess I'm one of those people who hears the word "ship" and thinks "grand sailing vessel"; it's sort of a Romantic thing--Whitman and de la Ville de Mirmont and all that. The "ship" at the end of Return is a boat. It is not going to inspire "legends of yore." Considering you have two bearers of the One Ring, plus the bearers of the Three, and that's all you can come up with? That's a VIP line-up, and you offer a glorified dinghy?
  
• Bag End, darn it! Sam's supposed to be at Bag End!
  
• Shelob has to be the most terrifying creature I've seen in a movie in ages.
  
• I had a hard time telling distinguishing if Howard Shore's score called for solo mezzo-soprano or solo countertenor. It could have been either--or it could have been both. It was that kind of voice.
  
• This is actually a defect in Tolkien's novel, but the battle before the Black Gate actually breaks a trilogy-wide buildup in the intensity of the battle scenes. Each one is more impressive than the last, but I don't think there's any way to top off Pelennor Fields.
  
• Gimli really does become the "Comic Relief Dwarf" (TM) in this third movie.
  
• The only change that I thought was too far away from what Tolkien originally wrote was the scenes leading up to the demise of Denethor.
  
• The more you like Tolkien's original, in fact, the more I think you'll find to kvetch about in this movie
  
• The Dawnless Day doesn't seem to dawn in the movie--perhaps it will at least get a passing reference in the extended edition.
  
• 75 minutes of extended features . . . (salivates)

But seriously, folks, in spite of the carping--y'all need to go and see this movie. It's the best I've seen this year--and all of my grumblings are only because I also like the novels so much, and was hoping to see so much more. But unless we wanted Return of the King Parts I and II, each three hours long (and really, who wouldn't?), this is the best we can hope for. If Jackson doesn't win Best Picture for this, I'll be extremely disappointed.

In other horrific news . . . .

Not only is Wil Wheaton--yes, he of the annoying Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation--apparently a blogger himself, but he's also received a three-book deal based on his blogs. Blogger seems to think this is worth trumpeting.

Me, I think they're all nuts.

Talk about stupid!

The following e-mail just showed up in my inbox:

"Cory Beck didn't have time for classes....but still got a Diploma!"

So, what's the big deal? The e-mail was sent to my college alumni account.

I don't think I need to say anything else.

Sure there are only 24 hours per day?

My department's annual holiday party is Friday at 4. Between now and then, I have: three musical rehearsals, two skit rehearsals, a concert to attend, and a meeting with my advisors to prepare for. The clock is not my friend right now.

Twitch . . . twitch . . . aneurysm

The world is doing its damnedest to render me insane. I just stumbled onto The Tonight Show, where Jimmy Carter was reading the "love" scene from his new novel The Hornet's Nest.

Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Eep!

True fact: This year's Grammy award nominees include Sophie Loren, Bill Clinton, and Mikhail Gorbachev, who all apparently collaborated on a recording of--get this--Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.

The random things people want to know . . .

. . . which have brought them to this site lately include:

• FuturesMAP
  
• Andy Roddick appearance on Saturday Night Live pictures
  
• Johnny Damon divorce
  
• Italian exclamation
  
• Burt Reynolds Maaco
  
• Nextel ad filibuster
  
• girls a top dunk tank

I have absolutely no clue what the last two are about.

Swap party

Hey--I know it was suggested a while back--but do you think the Democrats can trade Zell Miller for John McCain? Sometimes it's really hard to tell which one's a Republican and which one's a Democrat, especially over issues like this new Medicare bill--which Miller supported, but McCain decried for its lack of negotiating power.

Dumb and dumberer

OK. Now this is just completely crazy. To celebrate the completion of the Big Dig, the Massachusetts Turnpike Orchestra has hired the Boston Pops to perform--inside the southbound I-93 tunnel. This just can't be good--it's getting the taxpayers riled, and the acoustics in the tunnel is going to wash out completely the orchestral sound.

Feel the snark

As people who know me fairly well know, under certain conditions, I can participate in excruciatingly egregious examples of "high comedy"--in other words, I make really bad puns. Or, the extra sting in my comments takes everyone by surprise.

Apparently, while watching "Soylent Green" and "Planet of the Apes" with my Friday night movie crew, I was on a bit of a roll--so much so, that on several occasions, I was politely encouraged to watch the movie rather than let loose another zinger. I sort of felt like Scott Evil in Austin Powers 2.

And this from the same group that, when confronted with the following exchange:

Friend 1: "Do you have any rubbing alcohol?"
Host: "No, I don't think so."
Me: "Damn. Where's Kitty Dukakis when you need her?"

did not berate me, but instead complimented me on the appropriateness, obliqueness, and viciousness of the remark.

Guess somedays you just can't figure people out.

Surprise for seniors

Apparently the Bushies have managed to pull a fast one over the AARP. An article in the Times states that one of the provisions in the new Medicaid bill will forbid Medicaid recipients from buying insurance to cover the cost of medications, including those drugs not approved by Medicaid.

This seems to be a slap in the face of senior citizens, and the AARP, which somehow chose to support this bill, even though it seems very few people would benefit much from its passage. [Covering only $1400 of the first $5000 spent--and then covering 95 percent of the remainder--seems designed to maximize the spin while minimizing the actual savings to senior citizens (and other Medicare recipients, if any).]

Another victory of style over substance for the miserable failure regime.

Ten random thoughts: Blizzard edition

Another list of musings, brought on by the fact that I can't really go anywhere because of this storm that just won't quit.

• Has anybody yet realized that Clark/Dean might be a much stronger ticket than Dean/Clark?
  
• If I were a bear, this weekend would probably be sufficiently depressing to send me into hibernation.
  
• How much spontaneity can two hundred chemical engineering faculty and graduate students and their families bring to holiday fun-making?
  
• If car owners were like feral cats, this storm would cause us to lose all of our "ownership instincts" for our cars--after all, we can barely see them anymore (and I parked mine just outside my window, just to make sure I could see it in the storm).
  
• I wish I had come up with the "miserable failure" Google-whacking idea.
  
• Why are the Patriots and Dolphins going to be playing football tomorrow, when all likelihood, it'll still be snowing at game time?
  
• How could anybody come up with Survivor: The Party Game? I would have thought the concept of that show and a party game are kind of antithetical to one another.
  
• No good can ever come of the phrase "There's something else we need to talk about."
  
• Sometimes the early bird doesn't get the worm--all he gets are cold feathers when he could have stayed safely in the nest all morning.
  
• Finally, if anybody uses the phrase "winter wonderland" to describe the aftermath of this storm, I will go postal (or at least medeival).

Oh, my $*!@#

I just saw a commerical for KY lubricant. It was perhaps the most disturbing 20 seconds of television I've seen in quite some time.