Timmerov's Blog
scale
the scout pack had a celebratory bbq hiking geocaching water gun fight thing at alum rock park. a good time was had by all. we arrived first and stood around for a while wondering where all the other scouts might be. eagle rock overlooks the parking lot we were in. garrett looks up and sees a man standing on top of what must have been a very scenic outlook. he says, i could put that boulder in my pocket.
royal we
sometimes i say something like, we should do that. and i really mean, you should that. the joke is that's the royal we, meaning you. i think the white house has a dictionary full of presidential meanings of common words. some examples from past presidents: i am not a crook. that would be the presidential definition of crook. there should be a shorthand notation for that. traditionally one puts such words in quotes. read my lips - no new "taxes". but when you read a word in quotes you change the emphasis. to indicate it has a non-standard definition. so that won't work. i did not have (presidential) sex with that woman. hmm... maybe something like the trademark and copyright notices. iraq is an imminent threat (P). not bad. i should write a book of quotes by presidents annotated this way. heh. i'm gonna be so rich (P).
bush's greatness
the claim is bush is great. and he is. if you are a member of any of these groups: al queda phobe, hedge fund manager, right wing journalist, any resource-exploiting business, church schools, constitution-hater, pro big government, make-my-decisions-for-me-herd. i probably missed a few. it's kinda funny. the greatest thing he's done is kept al queda from attacking u.s. citizens on u.s. soil for 7 years. again.
gulf oil
currently, i'm opposed to more drilling for oil in anwr and in the gulf of mexico. this is the last of our easy oil. once it's gone there isn't any more. if you think oil prices are high now, just wait until we no longer have the option of producing our own. when the producing countries can charge whatever they want. now, i did say currently. there are some scenarios where i'd be all gung ho to get that oil out of the ground. a war where we're in danger of losing our country. that'd make me switch. also, if that oil was to be used to switch our economy to the next thing. i'm all for using the last of our oil to permanently break our dependence on oil. that'd be a good use. though you've got some pretty serious convincing to do if you want to persuade me we're going to do anything with that oil other than temporarily maintain the status quo of cheap gas for my suv's.
mcclellan
my lefty friends and my righty friends agree: scott mcclellan is a lying scumbag. clearly, a sure sign of the apocalypse. but they disagree on when he became a lying scumbag. (whew! we're saved) the righties think it was when he published that awful book. the lefties think he was a lying scumbag who saw the light and told the truth in that wonderful book. i think he's always been a lying scumbag. and always will be. he's just the first lying scumbag to cash in on the all juicy secret gossip (real or otherwise) that must have been going on in the white house all those years.
$1 water
buddy of mine was snarking on climatologists for predicting it'd be a drier than average year. at the time, california's winter was pretty wet. monthly totals were well above average. in other news, governor schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought because of two years with below average rainfall.
dang
this is so awesome. i wish i would have thought it it. i'd be so rich. ah well.
4e
so dnd 4th edition has been released. apparently my group got tpk'd by a pair of kobolds. twice. i haven't gotten to play yet. but i know what i'm gonna be. the lowly kobold of dnd through 3.5 has suddenly become best spec. i'm gonna be so slaughtery. yip yip yip.
fountains
i was somewhere nice today. doing something nice for someone really nice. the nice place had a fountain. it was gurgling and sounded nice. and it smelled nice. but after about two minutes i had to go pee. we bought a fountain similar to that one as an anniversary present a few years ago. it's dry. still pretty. seemed like a good idea at the time.
bets
some folks want me to pay up on that bet about human caused global warming. which stopped or reversed 2 to 11 years ago. heh. no problem. is it 2040 already? huh. nope. well, guess you'll have to come back later when conclusive evidence of the small effect can be teased out of the noise. but yeah. don't let me forget. to collect that is. ;->
gridlock
gridlock is really annoying. in case you've never experienced it, it's when some dickwads don't pay attention to traffic. and they drive into the intersection and stop. now the cross traffic can't go when they get a green light. i figure the city of palo alto should outsource a private contractor (me) to put an end to it. i'd wait at an intersection in a forklift. then when someone blocks traffic i'd go scoop up their car and put it on a flatbed truck. no ticket. the fine is whatever they're driving. payable immediately. i'm gonna be so rich.
detour
leaving work the other day, i saw a man carrying a detour sign. i followed him.
ratface
everyone welcome ratface to the link list to the right.
african bush
apparently george bush is extremely popular in africa. he closed down the baby killing clinics. and stopped the programs telling people the proper way to have sex is with an uncomfortable hunk of latex wrapped around your dick. he's promised to increase investment in african industry and education. yes, we want smart slaves churning out goods in our factories. heh. k, i'm being unfair. bush has promised gazillions of dollars for the treatment of aids malaria and other horrific diseases. just sign the patent protection treaty. so all that aid money goes to the expensive brand name versions of the drugs. instead of to the cheap generic imitations. which are just as effective and hundreds of times cheaper. yep, bush is doing great things for africans. someone's going to hell.
apologies
i apologize often. after a row i'm usually the first one to express contrition. it's just the way i was raised. and i really don't like conflict. unfortunately, this behavior is sometimes misinterpreted. some folks get the idea that since i'm always the one doing the apologizing i must always be the one that was wrong and therefore they're always right. ha. hardly. other times i say sorry about x, i was kinda pissed off about y. i'm not saying that y justifies x. if it did then there'd be no need to apologize for x, would there? no, the y statement is a poke a prod a gentle indication that you were wrong too and i feel like you owe me an apology. ain't never gonna demand one though. if you're too socially dense or too full of hubris to figure that one out on your own... well, it's nice to learn that factoid early. see ya asstard. have a nice long lonely life.
lane share
on the way home from hiking in calaveras for the beautiful and talented alisa's birthday, we took the road less traveled. it was a twisty turny often one lane thing. quite popular with the bicycle crowd. i'm real big on people cooperating and sharing a commonly held resource. like the road. so we waited patiently for safe opportunities to pass the small groups. and they generally returned the favor by signaling and/or shifting to single file from two abreast. except for one group. the largest. they seemed to think they owned the road. which i thought was kinda strange. "share the road" is a two way street. so to speak. if you want motorists to share the road, then you bicycle folks gotta share it too. i suppose it might be safer in a big pack like that. cars have to give you more room when they pass. maybe for the outside riders. definitely for the inside riders. on the other hand, they risk inciting road rage like what happened in australia recently. some a-hole passed an obnoxious group of 50 fast moving professional level cyclists, cut in front, and slammed on the brakes. wiping out the entire lot. fortunately the following lorry was paying attention and managed to not lose control and kill anyone. sheehs folks. grow some brain cells.
cap gains
upon further review i think i'm going to amend my position on the capital gains tax. it's clearly an unfair and biased tax that favors rich folks. however, if we got rid of it and made things more fair the middle and lower income classes would make more money. originally i assumed their productivity would stay the same. it'd go down because they're complacent. but it'd go up because they're happier. after cogitating on the subject some more i think their productivity would go to hell. we see it all the time at work. young low wage workers enter the workforce. do all the work. and the older higher paid guys do nothing except scoop up the credit. so. when us rich folks grab a larger chunk of the pie leaving crumbs for the rest it's really good for the economy. cause otherwise you'd turn into lazy slobs and wouldn't get anything done. it took a whole lot of exchanges with the "victims" of the capital gains con. but i think i got it now. thanks! i'm gonna be so rich. and apparently, that's just the way everyone wants it.
4080
i read an article about a marine with ptsd. he and his brother tried to drive a car into the grand canyon and failed. hijacked another and led police on an 80 mile chase. where the marine fatally shot his brother and himself. tragic. clearly. the body count of us soldiers in iraq today is 4080. i wonder if it counts those two. it should.
uvas
the boys' scout pack went camping at mount madonna last month. now it's on fire. i swear it wasn't our fault. not so bad. except we were planning to go camping this weekend at uvas which is next door. new plan. we went hiking in calaveras instead. little yosemite was pretty cool. the beautiful and talented alisa kept saying thank you for taking her somewhere she'd never been before. but it looked real familiar to me. then i remembered. i was here before. i came here to climb rocks with the girlfriend before alisa. yeah, anywho. uh. happy birthday dear!
mocking bread
a family of mocking birds live in the tree right outside of our bedroom window. i like mocking birds. i've seen them goose unsuspecting cats on the butt. i've seen them doing backflips. just showing off trying to attract a mate. anywho, the babies weep weep weep at five o'clock in the morning. it sounds a whole lot like the sound the bread machine makes when it's time to remove the bread for best effect. ftmb, funny to mocking birds. har har.
$1.50 gas!
hmm... if i ran a gas station i'd sell gas by the liter. i'm gonna be so rich.
immigrants
when you look around at the folks holding out their hands for freebies, they're not immigrants. in general, immigrants come here to work hard and partake of this land of opportunity. more power to em. something seems to happen after a few generations on this fat land. some folks get a bit lazy. start looking for the easy way. and get it. at the expense of those willing to work hard. sigh. that's not what made america great. uh the lazy bit isn't. the working hard bit is. seems like the sons of immigrants would make better presidents than the sons of old money.
freedom of religion
some folks are afraid that al queda will gain if the us is led by an apostate. i explain. under sharia law if your father is a muslim then you're a muslim. you are a muslim forever. you can't leave the religion. if you do you're the most reviled thing on the planet: an apostate. we have religious freedom in this country. people take for granted the freedom to respectfully decline the religion of their birth and take up one of their choosing. obama's father was a muslim. obama is christian. seems like an asset to me. not a liability. intolerant religions are gonna look bad. in general. yeah, there will be some folks willing to listen to the screaming dickwads. there always are. if they want to start a war over it let em. take their land, lives, money, oil, camels, caves, everything. ours now.
stairs
the building i work in has one flight of stairs. my cube corner is upstairs. the fridge full of diet coke is down stairs. there are 16 steps going down. there are 8 steps going up. it's been 10 years since i've been on a wrestling mat. but after 20 years of the sport i still cannot walk up a flight of stairs. i park my car on the fifth floor of the garage. there are 40 steps between the ground and my car. there are 80 steps between my car and the ground. i never take the elevator. even when i'm lugging one of those gawdawful heavy servers i spend my days working on at work and my nights working on at home.
china
i'm impressed by china's handling of the earthquake. when i was a kid they would have pretty much closed their doors and said go away we didn't have an earthquake and even if we did we'd handle it ourselves. seeing news reports and body counts coming out of china is a huge change. go china go! welcome to the world stage. front and center. the guys at the top are pretty good leaders. they plan long term. and generally do what's best for the country. the guys at the bottom are industrious. the guys in the middle are corrupt. they're in perfect position to take over the number one spot if the us implodes.
hit and run
we were late to baseball practice today. we were running a little late. had to talk to a policewoman. but i'm getting ahead of myself. 0. a machine: dial the number you want. sheehs. if i knew the number i wanted to dial i would have just dialed it. you stupid computer. 411. different machine: say a city and state. me: sunnyvale california. machine: say the name of the entity you want the number for. me: sunnyvale police department. machine: please wait for an operator. a human: sunnyvale police department. (hmmm...) me: is this the sunnyvale police department? person: no. this is the operator. would you like the sunnyvale police department. me: uh yeah. (you stupid human). a machine: say "hang on" if you want to be connected to the sunnyvale police department at no additional charge. me: hang on. (who the hell designed this system?) new machine: sunnyvale police department. if you're calling about an emergency hang up and dial 911. blah blah blah. press 8 to repeat this message. 1 (guessing). human, female: sunnyvale police department. me: i just witnessed a hit and run. would you like the details? policewoman: describe the car. me: i dunno. it was white. one of them poor kid sports cars. policewoman: describe the driver. me: caucasian, dark hair, mustache. was kinda busy taking down the license number. want that? her: sure! me: we drove around the block to the car that was hit. her: describe it. me: (sheehs) white, soccer mommy, pink seat covers. want the license number? her: sure! me: it was moved about 100' from where it was hit. parked badly. one wheel was jammed up against the curb. no owner anywhere. her: weird. where was the hit and run vehicle last seen heading. me: north on fair oaks. her: k. thanks! bye. click. me: uh... (sheehs) you're welcome.
answer 2
the intentionally dropped fly ball rule applies. the batter is out. runners may not advance. the ball is dead.
you make the call 2
bases loaded. no outs. batter hits a fly ball to the second baseman. all runners hold. second baseman intentionally drops the ball. all runners go. second baseman picks up the ball and tags second before the runner does. then throws the ball to the catcher who tags home plate before the runner does. the catcher throws the ball to the third baseman who tags third base before the runner does. what's the ruling? ie how many outs? did the run score? where are the runners?
answer
infield fly rule applies. the batter is out. the ball is live. there is no force at any base. the runners may advance and are in jeopardy with the same rules as any ordinary fly ball. ruling: three outs (infield fly rule, batter is out. runners from first and second are out because they are in jeopardy after a caught fly ball.) run counts because the runner tagged up and tagged home plate before the third out.
you make the call
bases loaded. no outs. batter hits a fly ball to the second baseman. runner on third holds. runners on first and second go. second baseman catches the ball. runner from third tags up and heads for home. second baseman runs over and tags second base. runner from third crosses home plate. second baseman tags the runner from first as he arrives at second base. what's the ruling? ie how many outs? did the run score? where are the runners?
