New Website!!

Hey everybody. Just letting you guys know that I have a new website now at http://www.poweredbykilroy.net, so I won't be using this blog anymore. I'll be posting on my new site instead, so update your links accordingly. :P

I also apologize for the total lack of updates during the last few months. I've partially been waiting for this new site to be done to post anything, and partially because life hasn't been treating my well enough for me to be in the mood to post anything anyway. But life is good at the moment. :)

Anyway, see ya on the new site! :D

Bread Statistics (and Proposed Restrictions)

Hi all. I haven't updated in a while, so I'm gonna present you with something funny that I read today in stats. We're learning about how certain groups of data can have an effect on other groups of data, and how hidden variables and things can trick people into believing that some groups of data have effects on other data when in reality they have no realistic effect at all.

Anyway, enjoy. Another post on the ups and downs of my life coming later.. probably.

Bread Statistics and Proposed Restrictions

Whereas:

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

Therefore:

In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:

1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, with complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.

— Author unknown. Found circulating around the interwebs.

The funniest five minutes of my life, ever.

I have the craziest friends.

So, if you know me, you know that I'm on the school's Impact Team, which is a group of people that meet together for a class period to practice and process skits about drugs, dating violence, depression, suicide, and other high-profile topics that kids and teenagers need to know about. The mood in that class can get very tense sometimes, what with all the seriousness of the topics we talk about.

So inevitably we are always finding ourselves doing things that, well, make us laugh. And we have an awesome time in Impact Team. Some of the funniest people in our school are on this team, and anything - that's right, anything - can just randomly happen out of the blue. It's crazy sometimes. But in a good way. A very good way. :)

Today after we finished practicing our skits that we have to present to the junior high health class students next week, we decided to unravel in a nice game of "freeze." Now, for those of you who don't know.. Freeze is an improv-style game where you and another person have to think of a funny situation on the spot, and other members of the audience can yell out "FREEZE!" at any time and take one of the two peoples' places. Eventually, Archie and Morgan ended up on stage together. Those two, especially Morgan, are probably the funniest people on the team.

They proceeded to act out a scene somewhat parodying a scene in our skit on dating violence, when all of a sudden someone yelled out "freeze" right when they were in this pose. Now, we can end up freezing in some pretty, um.. interesting poses, but this one just takes the cake.


However, we decided to end up going on with the scene as-is because it was just too funny. But this is where it goes over the top: Right before Archie attempts to say his signature line "I'm feeling smothered!," our principal walks in the room to see what all the laughter is about. (Our class is just barely down the hall from his office.)

We couldn't control our laughter at all. The thought of Archie and Morgan displaying their usual antics in front of the principal was just priceless. The principal ended up walking out of the room wondering what the crap we were all on that day. :P Right as he left, the bell rang, and I ended up talking to the principal assuring him that we weren't quite as crazy as he thought. :D

Overall, you just had to be there and to be a part of the team in order to really get it. Anyway, that's my crazy story for the day. As far as the rest of life is concerned.. school is alright (except advisory sucks.. we read the most messed-up story ever in that class today.. but that's for another day, another post), work is stressful (especially now that I'm a shift leader).. I've spent the last few days watching the new U2 PopMart tour DVD and it is amazing. The season premiere of The Office is tonight.. so I guess you can say that life is pretty good.

Anyway, until next time, catch all you.. um, couple of readers later!

Incubus - Light Grenades

Alright, here goes nothing - my first CD review on Some Kind of Web Log. I recently got into Incubus after hearing "Dig" on the radio a lot, though I've known about them for a while. I gave in and bought Light Grenades, and it's a really good CD.

Incubus are known for their music that blends rock with elements of rap, funk, and sometimes progressive rock. Light Grenades is no different. It's very rockin', but that doesn't mean there's some of the slower, more accessible stuff too that they have been known for as well. My favorites are the aforementioned "Dig," a somewhat ambient, U2-ish ballad with some truly amazing and really deep lyrics (one of my favorite lines is "Remind me that we'll always have each other, when everything else is gone"), and "Anna Molly," my definite favorite song on the CD. "Anna Molly" is very fast paced with lots of crazy percussion (what I love to hear in music :D), and just the right amount of guitar. It spent #1 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart for several weeks and it deserved every single week on there, in my opinion. If you don't want to pick up the CD, at least give "Anna Molly" a listen. You may just change your mind.

Other standout tracks to me include the song, "Light Grenades," which is two minutes of pure classic Incubus: fast paced and explosive, it's the song I've listened to most in iTunes from this CD. It's amazing. "Rogues" is another great track, with some awesome guitar and great lyrics. "Earth to Bella," which is featured on this CD twice in different incarnations labeled Part One and Part Two offer somewhat of a softer break from the otherwise very rock-based songs on this CD. These two songs are very melodic and have beautiful acoustic guitar that, in Part One, suddenly explodes with bombarding electric guitar riffs before again relaxing back into acoustic guitar. It's pretty cool the ideas that Incubus comes up with in their music.

Overall I'd recommend Light Grenades to anyone that likes alternative rock music and wants to expand their horizons somewhat. Great job, Incubus. More blog entries coming after the break.