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Jan 20 2012
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Al Observes Things

Universal office supply safety rules

my-staplerUnbeknownst to most, January is Office Supply Safety Month. Though many would question the value of an “Office Supply Safety Month,” we should all remember the time that Plaxico Burress brought a stapler to a club and stapled his foot to his sweat pants. If that wasn’t enough, who can forget the press that Gilbert Arenas got when he brought an unloaded stapler to the Wizards locker room? Sure, the stapler was unloaded, but the incident did create a sense of unease for fellow teammates who always considered the locker room to be a sanctuary for piles of documents to remain unattached to each other.

So here are a few rules that we should all follow in being safe with our staplers:

  1. All staplers are always loaded.
  2. Never point a stapler at anything you’re not willing to attach to each other.
  3. Keep your fingers on one side of the fulcrum until the target is properly aligned in the stapler.
  4. Always be sure of your target and what is behind and beyond it.

Following these simple rules will ensure that everyone can enjoy their staplers year around.

Coming up next week: Paper – Useful office supplies or tree-y knives?

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Nov 26 2011
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Al Observes Things

Fundraising for Wikipedia

I like Wikipedia and everything, but you know what makes me want to donate money to Wikipedia even less than seeing this at the top of every page?

jimmywales_thumb

Answer: seeing this at the top of every page:

brandonharris

Fun fact: Wikipedia is actually run by a motorcycle gang.

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Nov 26 2011
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Cut to the Chase, Movies

Cut to the Chases: Limitless, Take Me Home Tonight, and Step Up 3D: Tokyo Drift

For a lot of people, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of a four day weekend when you finally have a chance to relax and watch a bunch of Netflix. For me, I call this “Thursday.”

This weekend, I’ve watched Limitless, Take Me Home Tonight, and Step Up 3D, and I’ll cut to the chases of all three of them.

1. Limitless220px-Limitless_Poster

Bradley Cooper takes a pill that makes him smart. When he stops taking the pill, he vomits a lot and walks funny. Russian loan sharks are mean to him. Robert De Niro pretends to know a lot about money.

 

 

220px-Take_Me_Home_Tonight_Poster2. Take Me Home Tonight

See: Can’t Hardly Wait. For kicks, you can also see Post Grad, but I don’t recommend it. That’s probably just over-thinking it.

Warning: This film is vaguely 80’s themed. Like Donnie Darker, but vaguer.

 

220px-Step_up_3d3. Step Up 3D: Tokyo Drift

This is a save-the-rec-center-via-dance ala Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo style film, but instead of a rec center for kids, it’s a warehouse where Luke, a guy who loves to dance, houses a bunch of other people that love to dance. Yes, they all just live in a warehouse.

This is also about Moose from Step Up 2D. Though he loves to dance, his parents want him to pursue a career in engineering, so this is a story of Moose moving to New York to study electrical engineering at NYU.

How does it end? Well, it’s really a three-part ending.

First, they win the dance competition against a rival dance group called "the Samurai,” earning enough money to save their dance warehouse.

Then, we see Moose in a heartfelt meeting with his dean proposing that they allow him to be the first person ever to double major in electrical engineering and dance.

(Note from a person that has gone to college: double majoring in EE and dance is not only not hard to get approval for, but it’s also completely useless. Unless, of course, Moose later wants to pursue a double PhD in EE and dance.)

Last, we see Natalie in Grand Central Terminal. Natalie met Luke at the beginning of the film, and she’s about to take a train to California. She’s also spent the entire film convincing Luke, the guy who loves dance so much that he lives in a warehouse full of dancers, to pursue is real passion, which is film???? In any case, Luke decides to take a train with her to California so he can study film.

For those of you that are curious, taking a train to California is like taking a plane there:

planetocaliforniaoneway

Except it’s twice the price and takes about 2 days longer:

traintocalifornia

Oh, and since it’s in 3D, along the way, the film involves a lot of pointing at the camera while dancing.

The end.

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Nov 09 2011
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Movies

Things that have returned

I saw this ad on Facebook about the return of Beavis and Butthead:

beavisandbutthead

And it inspired me to create a post called “Things that have returned” where I list things that have returned and provide some half-assed commentary.

Here’s a list of things that have returned:

1. The Jedi

220px-ReturnOfTheJediPoster1983

Were there any Asians in the entire trilogy? This blog says yes.

2. Batman

220px-Batman_returns_poster2

For a while, I considered this to be the last Batman movie where anyone tried until Batman Begins. Then I rewatched it and decided that everyone that was involved in creating this movie had to be on hallucinogens.

3. The King

220px-EsdlaIII

This was way harder than it really had to be. You just had to ask all of the dead people, “hey, I need you to do me a favor and destroy 2 armies.” I don’t know why nobody thought of that.

4. The Living Dead

220px-Return_of_the_living_deadposter

I don’t know why I posted this. I’ve never seen it.

5. Jafar

220px-Returnofjafar

I haven’t seen this, but guessing from other “Return of” movies that I have seen, the evil Aladdin create a giant sphere-shaped space station with the power of destroying planets. He paints the likeness of himself and his friends on the side. Jafar, representing the knights of the Old Republic, flies with a fleet of rebels into a tiny hole and destroys the whole thing like he did two movies ago in Aladdin 0: A New Hope.

6. Superman

SpmRetPos

Returned: Superman.

Noticeably absent in this film: Writing.

7. Jimmy Wale’s face on Wikipedia asking you for money

jimmywales

Dude’s got a muscly face and he wants your monies.

Nov 02 2011
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Al Observes Things

Al hates on Captain Planet

Back in the first grade, I was a huge fan of Captain Planet (largely because it was the fashion at the time). These days, there are still some episodes that are really good and relevant (see the Civil Rights-ish one!) However, it’s 20 years later, and I’m just a huge hater, so I decided that I’d just hate on Captain Planet for a bit.

Did any of you notice what this was:

geocruiser

It was the Geo-cruiser. It’s a vertical-takeoff capable, solar-powered flying vehicle. The Planeteers used it to go anywhere they needed to go so they could fight the villains.

But did anyone stop and think that it might be a good idea to release manufacturing specifications of the Geo-cruiser? Within the surface area of a small plane that holds 6 people, they figured out how to harness enough solar power to ACHIEVE FLIGHT. Maybe share this with the rest of the world and end fossil fuel emissions for good? AMIRITE? Maybe? Ionno???

And did anyone remember how at the end of episodes, they tell kids how to do good for the planet? In one episode, Ma-Ti’s advice was something along the lines of, “cars pollute. Ride a tram.” Where in the population of people who watch Captain Planet are there trams? I lived in the suburbs. How is that at all helpful to me? That’s the kind of advice that’s only useful to Ed Begley Jr: the only guy who cares enough about the environment and has enough disposable income to build a tram.

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Oct 26 2011
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Understanding Finance

Understanding Finance- Mark to market accounting

A junior excutive shopping for goodsMarket to market accounting is kind of a big deal. Captains of industry like Jeffrey Skilling adopted mark to market accounting when he became CEO of Enron. But what exactly is mark to market?

Simply put, mark to market accounting is a practice rooted in the history of corporate espionage. Corporate spies would account for times when marks, or in this case, corporate executives, would go to the market to buy groceries. When performed en masse, the theory is that the cumulative action of all corporate executives at grocery stores could provide accurate intelligence into the company’s conditions. For example:

  1. Lots of caffeine – When execs purchase a lot of caffeine, it tends to mean that they’re up to something big, so they’re working long hours. Expect big news.
  2. Lots of fiber – Execs hitting up the Kashi aisle are probably constipated. This means that they’re eating lots of expensive meat, which is backing them up. Expensive meat means that they’re sitting on a lot of cash. Expect higher than expected earnings.
  3. Lots of alcohol – It’s Tuesday. Nothing really to learn here – execs just like to buy alcohol on Tuesdays.

Though this sounds like fancy pants accounting and voodoo math, it has been shown to work on numerous occasions. For example, corporate spies found that in 1983, when Randolph and Mortimer Duke cornered the frozen concentrated orange juice market, they consumed copious amounts of caffeine in the days leading up to the release of the orange crop report, and they ate lots of fibrous foods as they expected a large influx of cash. However, once they found out that his crop report had been tampered with, they proceeded to drink a lot (because it was on a Tuesday).

So that’s really all there is to mark to market accounting. If you have a firm grasp of mark to market, you can also make some educated guessing around what mark to lingerie model accounting is too.

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Oct 25 2011
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Cut to the Chase

Cut to the Chase–Crossing the Line

crossingthelineThe other day, I watched this documentary called Crossing the Line. It’s about a soldier from the US army that defected to North Korea in 1962. To condense the 1.5hr documentary to a single sentence:

I defected to North Korea and it was mediocre.

Of note about this documentary: it’s narrated by Christian Slater! But more on that in another post.

What I thought was specially crazy was the propaganda from the North Koreans, trying to convince soldiers to defect. They’d be all like, “hey, come over to North Korea. Everything’s awesome here, and we’ll give you money.” You know how you know that something isn’t right? When someone’s willing to give you money to take something awesome.

It’s like if Blizzard were like, hey, come play StarCraft2. It’s really fun, and you’ll get to play with girls that look like this:

ailuj

That’s Ailuj. She’s a diamond Protoss player (pret-ty good). Sure, there’s the possibility that you’ll end up playing with her, but realistically, you’ll end up playing with someone like Fat Mike:

mikefat

Note that I said “like.” Fat Mike isn’t even a real person. It’s just an undoctored photo I found of my roommate where he looks fat for some reason. So you won’t even get to play with Fat Mike. Because he doesn’t exist!

But I guess the real point was that there’s no way that StarCraft2 would be fun AND let you play with girls that look Ailuj because Blizzard would have no incentive to put that together!

Anyway, next up, what DID happen to Christian Slater???

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Oct 25 2011
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Al Observes Things

My thoughts on electrons

I’ve got a chemistry exam tomorrow, so I’ve been thinking about electrons a bunch. Here’s some of the output of that thinking:

Heisenberg Uncertainty Cartoons

Version 1

heisenberg_kinda

Version 2

heisenbergcartoon2

The following exhibit ionic character

halogen-ionic-bond

Magnesium-Oxide-Formation

sodiumchloride

ionic_column

The Name's Bond - Ionic Bond - Taken, Not Shared

And now for something unrelated to chemistry

houston_eulers

The Houston… Eulers????

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Oct 19 2011
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Awesome ideas, Food

Chemistry inspired sandwiches

From the genius that brought you Al’s Light Meals (you remember, the sandwiches cooked in photocopiers?) comes a new quantum leap in sandwich shops:

bohrshead

Bohr’s Head Sandwiches come with pretty mediocre meat, but they’re known for our signature ingredients:

  • Rydberg Bread – A Rye bread, baked fresh, almost constantly
  • Atomic hot sauce – guaranteed to give you the runs for your money!
  • Vidalia anion sauce – a sweet and tangy onion sauce that will positively get you charged (disclaimer: it’ll actually likely negatively charge you)

    •  

    Or, ask for your sandwich EXTRA BOHRING and we’ll not put any sauce on it at all. It’ll just be meat and bread.

    Each sandwich comes with our Paschenfruit smoothie. It’s so good, you’d have to see it to believe (and you’d have to wear infrared goggles to see it)!

    So next time you’re at a deli, demand Bohr’s Head Sandwiches!

    (For those of you who completely don’t get the joke, uh… here)

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    Oct 18 2011
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    Al Observes Things

    My opinions on Occupy Wall Street

    classic_occupy_wall_street_protest_signs_09So this Occupy Wall Street thing has started to become kind of a big deal, and recently, a lot of people have been expressing their strong opinions on what’s been going on. I’ve largely stayed quiet for two reasons:

    1. I didn’t have anything intelligent to say about it, probably because I didn’t really know anything about it.
    2. I don’t like getting into political discussions with people because I always end up raging all over the place.

    But now that it’s had some time to mature, I thought I’d share my thoughts. What’s Occupy Wall Street to me? Well, for starters, it’s a bunch of people… standing around. Why? I’m not sure… and I don’t think they really understand why either… but I get that!

    I totally get standing around and not understanding why. I grew up with 3 older sisters. Do you know what three older sisters liked to do on weekends? They liked to go to the mall and shop for clothes. I’d have to come along with them, and I’d just be standing around while they were in these stores, shopping for what seemed like hours, and I’d have no idea why I was there. And I’d be angry. Just like the Occupy Wall Streeters!

    In fact, just a few years ago, when I visited San Francisco, my sisters thought it’d be a great idea to spend the last few hours they had in San Francisco with me shopping in the Marina district. For women’s clothing. So I stood there on the sidewalk, not really knowing why, and just kinda being angry!

    I feel like this is the story of my life. Did you know that I played the violin for 9 years? I had private lessons, practiced daily, auditioned for regional orchestras, and you know what? I had no idea why I was doing it. After my parents stopped making me play the violin, I stopped playing altogether (it’s been 9 years!). I still have no idea why I was doing that. It was awful. And I’m still kinda angry.

    So you know what, OWSers? Sometimes, I hear you guys saying crazy shit, and I’m like, “oh no, rly?” but sometimes, I get it! Rock on!

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