Chance's Weekend Update: 05/26/2008

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/26/2008

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
-Anais Nin

 

It was a long weekend hanging out at NCAA track nationals, and then once we were all back in town the weather was much too nice to type up my weekend update. Luckily it was unpleasantly cold this morning (something like 40 degrees colder than yesterday morning) so I was able to find the motivation to sit down in front of a computer and put everything together. Anyways, it is time to get busy...have a great rest of the week!

                       

Some things that don't suck:

Living "off the grid", An architect in Arizona has set up a community with fifteen neighbors who all power their homes with a system of solar panels and wind turbines.

256gig Solid State Hard Drive, kind of like a huge ipod for your computer--it doesn't get hot and it loads super fast. Best of all, no moving parts to break so all of your files are safe.

This video really sucks but you need to watch it, This is some footage smuggled out of Burma that shows a small glimpse of the magnitude of the disaster which their government claims is over.

Coolest Foosball table ever...There is ambient lighting, three different types of ball for various speed of play, and best of all...each player is unique and can be handcrafted into anybody for which submit a picture.

The Dvorak Keyboard, Why are our keyboard letters jumbled up and out of order? As it turns out original typewriters were laid out alphabetically but because of the proximity of popular keys they kept jamming--so things needed to be spread out to slow typing down. In 1932, a professor from University of Washington figured out a more efficient layout but it never really appealed to the masses who had already learned the QWERTY method...if you want to try it your computer is already set up to do it ( its an option in control panel).

A Scavenger Boat to clean the Chicago River, The boat can pick up 4,600 pounds of river garbage in an 8- to 10-hour day. It injects 150,000 liters of oxygen into the water every hour, decontaminating 20,000 gallons of water a minute, reducing or eliminating bacteria and viruses...and it was only $600,000, but I guess the river is pretty gross.



Knowing what SPF means: "a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 will delay the onset of a sunburn in a person who would otherwise burn in 10 minutes to burn in 150 minutes"

The Big Lebowski--The F***ing Short Version, I love this movie in its original form but I find it hilarious that someone cut it down to scenes containing only one word each and you can still get the idea of the whole thing. Classic.

Free falling the a marathon, very literally, a 64-year old parachutist is planning on ascending to 130,000 ft in a special balloon and  a pressurized suit--a trip up that will take over 2 hours--and then jump out. (the 24.6 mile trip down will take less than 15 minutes)

Some things that do:

WiiFat, the Nintendo Wii is awesome, and the their new game WiiFit adds a dimension of exercise to normal video game experience. Unfortunately there is a flaw with BMI (body mass index) charts, and when you are below a certain age they are way off. The reason that is unfortunate is because following the games release in the UK this past week--the game told a little girl that she was fat, could be trouble for game developers.

The Balloon Project, This one is a bit random but sounded kind of cool--unfortunately it turned out to be very lame. A group of people just attach their video camera to a bunch of balloons and then let it float over their city while chasing it on their bikes. Once they collect it, they upload it all to youtube and pass it off as indie art...I am sure that someone who sucks will tell you about it no time

Chicago has the highest Gas Prices in the country, it officially sucks to drive anywhere now...but just to put things in perspective, my favorite Chicago blog  put together a list of the price per gall on on a couple of other common things in our lives:

Milk $3 (on average)

IBC Root Beer $5.33 ($3 for a six-pack of 12 oz bottles)

Miller High Life $5.33 ($15 for a 30-pack of 12 oz cans)

Ketchup $8 ($2 for 32 oz)

Hydrogen Peroxide: $10.32 ($1.29 for 16oz)

Coffee $17.44 ($2.18 for a 16oz iced coffee from Lovely)

Paint $24.98 (No conversion necessary! It comes in gallons.)

NyQuil: $93 ($7.29 for 10oz)

Super Glue $365 ($11.99 for a six-pack of .7oz tubes)

White Out Liquid Paper $738 ($4.29 for 22ml)

Polo by Ralph Lauren $1984 ($62 for 4oz)

Chanel Nail Polish $5760 ($18 for .4 oz)

More Gov Blago Corruption, apparently 8 weeks of work for the governor is worth $38k a year for the rest of your life--if you are a friend at least.

Former Cubs Pitcher died when he was struck by lightening last Sunday, Geremi Gonzalez, who won 11 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1997, was killed by a lightning strike in his native Venezuela on Sunday. He was 33.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/18/2008

"America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair."
-Arnold Toynbee

Another weekend closer to graduation and things keep getting crazier a around here. First things first, earlier in the week I let a bunch of the freshman into our dorms so that they could fill Brian and Sharks rooms up with balloons (220 of them)--it was awesome, they even made a killer video of it that I am working on getting a link for by next week. Also this weekend was SpringFest at NCC, that means we were rocking out hardcore to an 80s tribute band in the rain, campus safety officers were all over pretending to be real police, and there are broken things all over campus--it was awesome. On another awesome note, I have heard through the grapevine that my update gets forwarded around a lot. From my perspective around 100 people read it, but I am hearing reports of many more...so if you get this as a forward but would like a permanent spot of your own on my mailing list, reply back to me and I would be more than happy to add you. In case you missed it, Friday night's track meet had some sweet action in the 4x400m relay. In first place, our 'A' team qualified for Nationals with the fastest time in the country...and in last place, our 'D' team (made up of distance guys--not sprinters--Shark, Kennedy, Brian, and myself) finished off our collegiate track careers in style...and half tights. Anyways, Have a Great Week!

Some things that don't suck:

GOOG 411, it is kind of like real 411 only free and better...dial 1-800-GOOG-411 from any phone, say where you are and what you are looking for and they will connect your for free (and depending on your cell phone settings can text you directions or the actual location on a map)

Rocket Man (Courtesy of Shark) "Hang gliders are for girls" said Yves Rossy....okay not really, but that is what he meant when he strapped on his fixed wing jet powered backpack and flew around the Alps @ 180 mph...so awesome

The Coolest Pen EVER...called the PulsePen. It has a voice recorder, a loud speaker, and a tiny camera that records the words you write....then the coolest part is that later if you go tap the pen on the words you wrote it will replay the audio it recorded while you were writing--perfect for notes in class or an interview--also if you tap another word it will skip to exactly that section of audio.

"This double-action camping/serial killer tool combines a compact axe and a lightweight knife with 3-inch blade that stores inside the axe handle" - online review. But for real, with my Colorado trip just a couple weeks away I have been looking around these camping sites and this handy little tool is one of the sweetest things I have seen in awhile.

Getting a college B-Ball Scholarship as an 8th Grader, Seriously though, Michael Avery is a 6ft 4in tall fourteen-year-old who was just made an offer to play college ball for Kentucky--after he finishes high school of course.

The Cubs, This week they signed Jim Edmonds, are ten games over 500, and I got tickets to the June 1st game for $15. Hell yeah.

The Sky is not falling...but it is barely staying up...U.S. Economic growth of 0.1% means no recession--it does mean weakest positive growth rate in 17 years--but hey, at least our heads are above water going into the summer spending months.

Finally having evidence that woman can't be trusted...if you watch nothing else this week, watch this...and then send it to all of your single sons, brothers, and friends just to give them a heads up of what they are up against these days.

Some things that do:

Dating a Murderer, WTF....I repeat...WTF...Drew Peterson, the Bolingbrook Police chief famous for killing his last two wives and getting away with it has a new girlfriend, she is 22 and clearly an idiot:

"They're like, 'We're 100 percent positive he killed them. His family thinks he killed them. You're going to be next,'" she said. "And I'm like, 'Then why isn't he in jail?'"

On a side note, her Mom called the cops...The soon-to-be missing little lady recently spent the night at Peterson's but claimed that "nothing physical happened," which was quickly put to rest by Drew--always the gentleman--following up with,"Never 'nothing' physical,"...Asshole.

Being anyone else but us...(literally U.S.)..., I came across this slide slow of some of the craziest weapons that the US has come up with over the past twenty years or so...some are just a little weird like the "puke flashlight" and the "gay bomb" which get the results the name imply...while other are slightly more sinister...like the "Active Denial System" a microwave for people...only it looks like a satellite dish and can be pointed at you or the "Rail Gun" very similar to the gun Arnold Schwarzenegger used in the best movie of 1996--Eraser--except that the chunk of metal (no explosive at all) can hit a 5-meter target from 200 nautical miles away with the force of a tomahawk missile...ouch.

Drake Student Arrested for throwing M&Ms at Police, While I am all about respecting authority, a decent amount of police--especially campus police are d-bags. So the 20-yr-old throwing candy coated chocolates in defense of his friend seems reasonable enough to me...but then the police stepped up their game and arrested him, so he had to step up his and piss all over the back seat of their car...

Two weeks until the Illinois Budget deadline for next year and legislators are praying for a miracle. In case you forgot, last year's overtime cost taxpayers over a millions dollars--including round trip airfare home every night for the good Gov'na...anyways, I am hoping that he has time to show up this year and iron out that 3/4 of a Billion dollar budget deficit in between testifying about his corruption.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/11/2008

"The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity."
-Helen Rowland

Happy day after Mother's Day / end of the nice weather we have been having...it was so cold this morning. I guess it is a lot better than January and February when we went almost a month without seeing the sun, but just as we were getting used to 70s and sunshine, we get a forecast of a week of 60s and rain. In other sad news...college is over soon. I have really enjoyed my last four years and kind of wish that I had at least a couple more...but on a less depressing note, the Cubs swept the Arizona and are back on top where they belong...and there was a ton of news this week, so much that I had to leave off so much cool stuff because the email was getting too long. Anyways, I should really get to finishing up my last couple of papers so that I can be irresponsible the next couple of weeks! Have a great day!

Some things that don't suck:

Burglar gets caught by stolen computer, besides keeping track of our schedules, emails, and finances...now our computers can catch criminals for us...Mac computers have a sweet feature that lets you find your stolen computer if it is ever connected to the internet again...and the case mentioned in the article they were able to take a picture of the criminal with the built-in camera ON THE STOLEN COMPUTER and simple take the photo to the real police.

Coolest tool set ever, is 1470 tools excessive? no, not if you need them. And now that Craftsman is selling this mega tool set comprised of their 10 Professional Series Sets there is a decent chance that you will need something out of here...while one could argue that $8600 is a little steep, I would say that you cannot put a price on the peace of mind that comes with knowing you can fix everything, or at least have the tools to break it worse trying...



Democratic primary race nearing conclusion, with the momentum shift in super delegates after Obama's victory last Tuesday (BO 144 from the magic number) this thing could be over before we know it...Hilary has even toned down her hate campaign--positioning herself for the #2 spot on the ticket. Some say this long primary has worn on both of the democratic candidates and weakened them for the fall election...but I (and the author of this article) say otherwise...Obama has weathered some pretty serious storms and is now a hardened pro candidate...this should get good.

Cars that Fly? Nope...Planes that drive, It is the year 2008 and we still do not have flying cars and that is a little sad...finally a couple of MIT grads (they are so clever) decided to take a different approach to the problem...they just build a plane which could fold up and drive on the highway...

$5000 a month to stay in bed, so maybe we do not all have the credentials to be astronauts...but we can all work for NASA...they are still trying to figure out how the long trip to Mars would effect the human body, so for their latest study, they are paying volunteers $17,000 to stay in bed for 90 straight days!! Sounds like a hell of a summer job...

Wrigley Seating Guide, If you have spent much of any time in Wrigley then you know that there are a couple of seats with a great view of a giant steel column or the bottom of the upper deck--and not much else. Luckily for those of us not Wrigley savvy enough to avoid these terrible tickets and potentially falling cement on our own there is this great resource to get to know your seat before you pay for it.

Faster Lines at Midway, in an effort to cut wait time in airport security, Midway has borrowed an idea from the ski slopes and marked lines with a green circle--beginners, a blue square-intermediate travelers, or a black diamond-advanced passengers...Now the regular business travelers shouldn't have to wait for the family of five trying to get everyones shoes off--but just like the slopes, they will have to wait for all of us overconfident intermediates crowding their line.

Some things that do:

Banned Books, banning books is dumb...not quite as dumb as not teaching evolution in schools--but it is getting up there. I found this list of the most commonly challenged books the other day, and it kind of upset me, because I like at least 10 books on the list. Further, there is a special notation in the last column for if the book is also on the "one hundred most important books of the 20th century" list...

Crazy Volcano, as nuts as it is that a volcano erupted...one could never have predicted the insanity that followed in its wake locally...I will admit that I have had my fair share of strange theories about things, but so far there has not been even one case we have looked into which has not supported our (Ward 402) hypothesis that the volcanic ash in the atmosphere made women--at least temporarily--lost their minds. In the 48 hrs following the eruption, all of our girlfriends got very mad at us--yelling and crying--over very trivial things...as the hours ticked by we heard more and more reports of irrational girlfriend behavior, "insane wives", and arguing on cell phones all across campus...Maybe we are way off on this one, but next time there is a volcano in the news I am turning off my phone, locking the door, and taking a long nap...

Hybrids don't make much noise, so it is hard for kids to hear them coming...hence more and more people are getting hit by these silent killers, haha...sorry...Obviously there is a down side to everything, and while amazing fuel efficiency and reduced emissions is great for the environment...when Hybrids kick into EV mode they are pretty stealthy, and apparently this mode also paralyzes the neck muscles pedestrians in the general vicinity so they are unable to turn their heads to see that there is a car coming before they cross the street...

Postage on the rise, another year, another price hike...$0.42...pretty soon I won't be able to afford all of my mail correspondence anymore...oh wait, it isn't 1950--email is free...really though, I wish I wouldn't have thrown away all of those 1-cent stamps from last time this happened.

Mother's Day Tornado, this one sucks...powerful storms swept across the Midwest and Southeast, killing 22 on Mother's Day morning.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch

Chance's Weekend Update: 05/04/2008

"Laws should be like clothes. They should fit the people they are meant to serve. "
-Clarence Darrow

Good Morning, sorry for the late edition, I was a little sleepy yesterday so I went to bed rather than cranking out the update. Anyways, I recovered fully from my bike accident--thanks for the support. Also, the weather is amazing right now, so I am going outside and you should too. Have a great week...

Some things that don't suck:

Prius getting over 100mpg, I don't mean to brag, but I have been hyping 'A123 Systems' the MIT startup company--which produced a new type of battery that is 1/3 of the weight that takes a fraction of the time to charge--for almost two years now. This past week it was announce that on top of producing the massive battery for the Chevy Volt, they built a product for an offshoot company, Hymotion, which takes the place of your spare tire in the trunk of the Prius and boosts fuel efficiency to over 100mpg! On their website they didn't go through the cost savings associated with dropping $10,000 on an extra battery / they were much more interested in carbon footprint and things that like...but I did. First I figured that I drive, or will at least, about 17,000 miles a year (a little above the nat'l commuter ave of 15k), then there is the current Illinois gas price average of $3.69 (a number probably already outdated), and finally I used the friendly discount rate currently offered by the fed of 2.5%...that said, at the moment one would save about $1,810.80 a year on fuel, which over 5 years you would still be $1,677.02 in the hole in todays dollars (but still save a ton of trips to the gas station). Just for kicks, I found that the break even point (using Excel's Goal Seek function) is gas at $4.41 per gallon...so probably September, j/k I hope. But really the 2012 Department of Transportation estimate is $7 a gallon...so it is worth thinking about--especially since the battery in the trunk takes only 4hrs to charge and costs roughly $0.50 for a full "tank". If you want to play around with some numbers on your own I would be happy to send you my spreadsheet.


Things get done with Dictators, China said the air will be clean for the Olympics....but how, the city is so crowded and dirty--A mix of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide often blankets the city at levels five times higher than World Health Organizations safety standards--so they are shutting down factories in and around Beijing until the close of the games. When China says jump, its people say "how high?" unless of course they are in Tibet, then they say something like "kiss my ass" only in Chinese.

Paper Planes, once this song gets in your head it will never get out, M.I.A. is awesome, there is a sweet dance to the chorus, and this is the theme song to one of the funniest looking upcoming movies of the summer, Pineapple Express. M.I.A. says "Paper Planes" is a response to capitalism and the search for income, and is also a joke about perceptions of immigrants. She may be a political chick, but her dad was a militant revolutionary in Sri Lanka...so I guess that is to be expected....still a sweet song.

Mars bought Wrigley, I am of course talking about the company...not the field unfortunately. But backed up with money from the richest man in the world--Warren Buffet--Mars is now the largest candy company in the world (they also own Starbucks). What does this mean for the Cubs? Nothing--Wrigley sold them back in the 80's to pay taxes...but hey, maybe Buffet is a Cubs fan...

Swimsuit Controversy, Speedo unveiled its new LZR Racer suit earlier this year...and so far 20 world records have fallen under its aid...For about $500 dollars you and a team of experts and possibly some lubrication can squeeze this suit on and reduce drag by 5% more than the 2nd most advanced suit on the market. If you aren't wearing it, you probably cant win--and that is why even though it has been approved for Olympic use there are plenty of people pissed off about the advantage...I say the faster the better, as long as it is not laced with adrenaline and there isn't a propeller they can wear it.

Forked up storage, "functional art" some might call it...others, myself included think it is kind of a creative way to store your silverware....simply install this cool board into your wall and all of your guest will think you have a screw loose...

Being able to hold your breathe for 17 minutes and 4 seconds, David Blaine is insane...and this is the second time I have cited Oprah...but this video is worth seeing...I just tried a similar experiment myself and got a little dizzy / bored at 1:34...congrats Mr Blaine, you beat me today.

Some things that do:

15,000 fake pairs of Nikes seized by police in Oak Forest, the shoes having and estimated value of $750,000 were boxed, labeled, and ready to be distributed to discount stores and flea markets...criminals are getting pretty resourceful.

R Kelly and his love for minors, the big trial kicks off this Friday in Chicago--before forming an opinion either way it is always prudent to get the facts straight...this website provides a brief and sometimes a bit disturbing summary of all ELEVEN allegations against the singer / songwriter...who is illiterate (which explains a lot about his simply songs).

Wheaton Professor fired for keeping his private life private, Kent Gramm, a popular English professor at Wheaton College since 1988 was fired for refusing to cooperate with an administration investigation into the cause of his pending divorce with his wife of 30 years.

There will be blood, not the movie of course...well maybe...anyways, I am talking about the bloodsuckers who decided it would be a great marketing opportunity to start up "Foreclosure Tours". Literally a bus tour of foreclosed property...you pay to get on the bus ($97), you are driven around to see people at a rock bottom moment of their lives AND you can put in your bid right there--because the tours are sponsored by Realtors. Chicago people aren't always nice, and I am sure they will be less then courteous when a two level tour bus pulls up out front of what used to be their home...

Computer keyboards are dirtier than Toilet seats, every couple of years we are hit with a nice disgusting fact about our daily lives, so I guess this was about due...I guess I haven't cleaned my keyboard in the four years I have had this computer...and I am eating Chex Mix right now....crap.

Until Next time,
-Chance Kelch