Friday, May 26, 2006

Shortness as Excuse for no Jail Time

I cannot get over this article about a 5'1" man who is excused from prison because he is too short after having sexual contact with a 12-year-old girl over a couple of months. The situation I wrote about earlier this week is cruelty; this is stupidity.

On a brighter note, everybody have a great Memorial Day Weekend! I'll blog again on Tuesday.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Rape in the Congo

This article is very disturbing, discussing the rape and torture of women, men, and children in the Congo. Does anybody know of any charitable organizations set up specifically to help support hospitals there?

Monday, May 22, 2006

Why am I watching this?

ESPN Classic is showing "Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Bill Buckner." My heart is breaking all over again. Why am I watching this?

The three singles, the passed ball, the error....(shudder)...

Monday, May 15, 2006

Don't boo Canada =(

Sharks fans booed during the Canadian National Anthem prior to an NHL playoff game. Sooo absolutely disgusting.

It brings back a good memory though: after the Montreal Canadiens booed during the our National Anthem, the series was coming back to Boston. All of the news outlets in Boston (never ones to blow things out of proportion of course) were worried about the reaction of the Bruins fans. However, the fans made everybody look great by cheering loudly during the anthem. Ironically, they still drowned out the sound of the anthem with their cheers (not sure if that was on purpose or not).

In other sports news, both of my fantasy baseball teams fell a place this week, the spike sharpeners from 2nd to 3rd out of 6, and the dirt dogs plus one from 1st to 2nd out of 10. I have been too busy to manage either team thus far, and realized on Sunday that I had Pedro on the bench for one of those teams. He is the 2nd most valuable player OVERALL throughout that league, behind only Pujols. And he was on my bench because I hadn't checked since his first-week-of-the-season injury. Grrrr. He's in now, so be ready 2006 DD Reunion League!!!

Sunday, May 14, 2006

PDD Over!

On Saturday, I spent the day at the Product Design and Development presentations. My dad went with me last year, and this year he brought my mom along. We all had a great time.

Most of the inventions were pretty impressive in terms of ideas, the actual product, or just the presentation. I found only a couple of the presentations to drag; most went very quickly.

We went second-to-last with ours. Rachael and I presented, and I think it went really well. I will post a link to our product as soon as our patent comes through. =)

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Dartmouth is not conservative

It's been a while since I've blogged. The term is wrapping up, and I have been buried in papers and projects. However, I was taking a break and reading the news, and I came across an article about The Dartmouth student body electing an openly gay president. While I'm happy for the guy, I'm not at all surprised that we elected a gay president. Dartmouth kids are smart enough to vote the issues, dudes.

The winning candidate is quoted as saying, "I hope people see Dartmouth as not as conservative as they once thought." Why does everybody still think that Dartmouth is so darn conservative? Yes, it was once. IN 1985. Dudes. Big hair was in then. So were flourescent clothing and parachute pants. Michael Jackson was a well-respected singer. 1985 was a looooong time ago.

Dartmouth had already begun getting very liberal while I was there. The politically correct atmosphere bordered on stifling; not because I disagreed with the intention of the movement, but because the care with which people avoided elephants in the room made my stomach turn at times. (Yes, I'm sure that little old lady is carrying a bomb. Be sure to frisk her to prove there is no profiling of any kind going on).

Anyway, I love Dartmouth, don't get me wrong. If I had to live my life over, I would still apply there early, and would still participate in all the activities I did while there. I guess I'm just ranting about people still considering Dartmouth conservative in order to avoid doing the PDD or System Safety presentations. Who knows?

Just keep in mind that times have changed since the Dartmouth Review and Michael Jackson were popular. Now the Review is run by a group of nerds; nerds so nerdy that they would stand out at MIT. The Review barely made a peep while I was there. Once a week, I would find a paper lying in front of my door. When I had a bunny, I would line the cage with it. Once they wrote me up for being too liberal. Some people around campus had the article I wrote hanging on their walls...I had the Dartmouth Review's review of me on mine. It was hysterical and poorly written. What can ya do?

Okay, I'm done procrastinating. I'm going to go out humming the Dartmouth Fight Song (yes, there is one...) Glory to Dartmouth, loyal we sing, now all together...LET THE ECHOES RING FOR DARTMOUTH...

Thursday, May 04, 2006

An engineering problem on Mem Drive

I was walking on Memorial Drive when I saw a mother duck with a line of ducklings following her. She was walking near train tracks about thirty feet below Mem Drive (right after the BU bridge). Suddenly, she turned and stepped over the train tracks. The ducklings all tried to follow her, but couldn't seem to make it over the first rail.

There were eight of them, and they kept popping up one at a time like popcorn. It took about four minutes before the first one got over. He stood with his mother between the two rails, waiting for the others.

The rest of the ducklings ran back and forth as a little mob by the rail, trying to pop over. Eventually, they found a spot that had a pile of leaves and five more of them climbed over that, leaving two behind. These two ran around for another couple of minutes before finding a tie to cross on.

So now we had a mother duck and eight ducklings in the middle of the track. Mom stepped over the next rail, with her little overachiever following closely behind her. The exact same struggle occurred as with the previous rail. After another 5 or so minutes, all the ducks were on the other side. The whole thing had me standing there watching for about 15 minutes. It was delightful for the most part, but a little sad whenever there was only one little ducky left trying to hop over each rail.

Just thought I'd share =) I didn't have my camera, and my camera phone couldn't get a close enough picture, or else I would have some really cute photos.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

My reaction to Johnny Damon

Okay, here is my condensed reaction to why I would boo Damon: he went back on his word.

Yes, baseball is a business. However, if you work for Sun and bolt to work for Microsoft, your former coworkers won't exactly be cheering for you as you return to Sun after sharing all of Sun's secrets with Microsoft. There. "Baseball as a business" argument discarded.

Furthermore, if you are going to do something for yourself, say you are going to do it for yourself. At one point, Damon was quoted as saying that the extra money he earns with New York could "help a lot of people." Yeah, him and his wife. (Sorry, too much to do or else I would dig for the quote).

Lastly, and most importantly: he broke his word. On May 25 of last year, Damon said that he might leave the Red Sox, but would never play for the Yankees. I do not like liars.

Yes, Damon helped us win the World Series. For that I am grateful. However, think about Ford's CEO bolting for Dodge. Would you as a Ford employee still love him for something he did years ago?

It's like a man cheating on his wife and her saying, "Well, he cheated on me. But we went out for a really good dinner two years ago." Nuh-uh. Ain't gonna happen.

Stick It!

The creators of "Bring It On" are coming out with "Stick It," the gymnastics equivelent to the cheering of the prior film. Yes, "Bring It On" is one of my favorite films. I share this weird love with Katie, the other female engineer in the group. We want to plan a girls' night out to go see the film and enjoy martinis afterwards, as soon as I am done with class (along with Liz and Corey, of course!)

Chickies--let me know if you are interested. Guys--I am sure you are happy to be dodging a bullet with this one. =D