Marijuana as military tactical shield.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/10/12/canada.troops.marijuana.reut/index.html
One soldier told him later: “Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I’d say ‘That damn marijuana’.”
Brilliant. I think we can make an argument that the War on Drugs is effectively undermining our national security, since we’ve not taken full advantage of this plant as a covert defensive material.
In the catagory of Learning Something New Every Day, I had no idea that so many reasonably solid objects were like clear glass to Infrared signals.
Right through a manilla folder! Right through!
Huh.
There comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether you’re a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and I’m beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun. Persons of Letters have to read things like Candide or they’re a few letters short of the whole alphabet; book lovers, meanwhile, can read whatever they fancy.
-Nick Hornby, Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt via excerpt on Mcsweeneys.net
I got a spam email today with the subject “Record Breaking Mummy” today.
I’m pretty sure that would make a good children’s book.
I have never been a coffee drinker.
On occasion, when I lived in New Orleans, I would have a Cafe Au Lait at that famous beignet store in the Quarter, because That’s What You Do. That’s it, though.
When I was in Paris, I greatly offended my French coworkers by ordering Coke instead of coffee at lunch. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it’s what I had for breakfast as well. When I was going to Chicago, I once ate at some snooty, high-end, jacket-required restaurant1 where the waiter actually snorted when I ordered a Coke, and said, “I’ll surprise you.”
So, after many years of being a social pariah for not taking part in the worship of the bean, it’s somewhat disturbing to find that I’ve been having a cup or two a day since last Tuesday. Last Friday morning, I chatted with my mother over coffee, which is the sort of thing adults do.
It started when my waitress at the hotel in El Paso put a cup in front of me without asking whether I wanted it or not. I drank it, because no other drinks were offered, and I noticed later in the day that I hadn’t had the urge for my morning Coke.
It smells nice, though it doesn’t taste particularly good nor particularly bad. It lacks the complication of tea, with it’s stirring and seeping and teabag/tea leaf disposal. In contrast, there’s always a pot brewing here at work, for free. It still contains that nasty caffeine and tooth staining color that Coke carries, but it lacks sugar (at least mine does), so I’m one step ahead of the game there.
Look at me. Dressing in khakis and drinking coffee. Hopefully, we’ll never invent time travel so my 13 year old self won’t have to find out what a loser I’ve become.
1 Biggs was the name of the place. The only reason I was there was that my then-girlfriend’s father was a doctor. He had saved (or rather, extended for a while longer than expected) the life of some bigwig who lived in Chicago, and out of gratitude gave the GF a gift certificate to this way-too-expensive restaurant. Among the many gaffes I made was wearing tennis shoes and pants with a hole in the knee. At least they were my best pants and shoes, but that only works on a relative level and I couldn’t find a way to explain that to our waiter. At the end of the evening, we handed him the gift certificate and he smiled as if that explained it all.
Experimental Lotion Could Be Secret to a Safe Tan.
The internet is awash with really cool things today.
I’m very excited.
Someone at the Fool just posted a link to Warren Buffett’s Letters to Partners from Buffett Partnership, the company that predated Berkshire.
It’s like finding episodes of The West Wing‘s first 14 months in office, or an extra 3 or 4 Shakespeare works, or prequels to the Star Wars trilogy that don’t suck.
The internet… a beautiful thing.
I had in the back of my head the horrifying concept that raising a kid to age 18 costs something on the order of $100,000. I realize now that I got that number from a Calvin and Hobbes comic, and the actual number is much, much scarier.
Roughly $269,000 to $330,000 per kid. To age 18. That doesn’t include helping them with college tuition or diesel repair school.
There’s a guy here at work who has 8 kids. I’m sure he gets a volume discount, though.
Keith and the Girl were celebrating having broken though the 50,000 mark recently on Alexa. Last night, I decided to do a little site-surfing on Alexa.
| SITE | RANK |
|---|---|
| LiveJournal | 68 |
| The Motley Fool | 974 |
| Cisco | 1,140 |
| Keith and the Girl | 38,526 |
| Creative Loafing | 42,880 |
| Scientific Atlanta | 76,996 |
| Georgia Shakespeare | 746,484 |
| Atlanta Coalition of Performing Arts | 971,451 |
| Dad’s Garage Theater | 1,065,810 |
| Alliance Theater | 1,189,508 |
| TheaterReview | 1,221,688 |
| Shakespeare Tavern | 3,130,112 |
| eLucas.net | No Data |