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April 03, 2008
I Got Fooled Again
Yeah, this post is mostly just gonna be a grab-bag of random stuff I've come across on the web in recent days that I found interesting. Of course that doesn't mean that any of you will find any of this interesting, but hopefully this isn't a *complete* waste of your time!
Item #1: So apparently North Dakota has an oil field beneath it. A really big oil field. As in 200-500 billion barrels of recoverable oil, in all likelihood. Who knew? Apparently the USGS and petrochemical companies (for some time), but now that the price of crude oil is in triple figures per barrel, it's actually economical to recover the oil from the Bakken Formation. If Bakken is drilled (and energy companies are actively buying land in the Williston Basin in North Dakota), that could be a major relief to the US, allow less importing of foreign oil, drive oil prices down (and hence the prices of everything else in our economy down as well), and give us a bit more time to come up with a practical alternative energy solution. I wonder if NDak is gonna repeal the state income tax and each citizen of the state a check, like the government in Alaska does...
Item #2: I just discovered a comedy group in New York City called ImprovEverywhere. They "cause scenes" in public places all over the city, such as staging a musical with employees at a mall food court, sending 111 shirtless guys into the Ambercrombie & Fitch store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, sending in a bunch of shoppers to do synchronized slow-motion then regular-speed then frozen shopping at Home Depot, and many more. For an example of their fine and very funny work, check out this stunt from Grand Central Station (h/t: Tracy):
Item #3: I've read many analyses of what J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is about, but this is the first time that I've heard it's about property law.
Item #4: Greenies are trying to use sharks to take jobs away from people like me. Too bad their pipe dreams are completely impractical; you can't be rid of us meteorologists so easily, mwuhahaha!!
Item #5a: Now that April Fools Day has past, I feel like I can safely post a top 10 list of April Fools' pranks for nerds.
Item #5b: So here's what actually happened on April Fools Day. Ashley, Caren & Kerrie hatched a plan over spring break to get as many of my friends here at PSU as possible (both in meteo and PSCG) to switch their Facebook profile pictures to the same not-so-great picture of me (which, incidentally, they got from one of my photo albums on my Facebook account, haha) for the whole day. It was pretty funny and very well executed. :-) It did take awhile for me to notice (what can I say, I was actually busy coding!), but well done everyone!
Item #6: This is just bizarre -- photos of toilet signs from around the world. Ooookaaayyyy, moving on...
Item #7: Have you ever seen a wind turbine blow up? I sure hadn't! Check out how this turbine in Denmark failed spectacularly:
And finally, Item #8: It's early April, and that means that not only is baseball in the air, but so is spring football practice! Penn State's Blue-White Game is coming up in just over two weeks, and our 82-year old coach, Joe Paterno, opened up a practice session to the media last week. He's definitely still got fire in his belly, and a lot of spunk (his "Get that shirt pulled down!" comment at about the 1:10 mark is great, haha). And he's running around like a spry 70-year old too!
I can't wait for Penn State football again! If we can rectify our quarterback situation, the Lions seem to have a lot of promise to be a very good team.
/Randomness
Posted by Jared at April 3, 2008 11:39 PM
Comments
I remember that I was once in a restaurant that used pictures of Bill and Hillary Clinton to indicate the men's and women's restrooms.
Posted by: Jeff at April 4, 2008 10:47 AM
From what I've been reading lately oil supply is at the same level we were at in the early 90s. In fact the push for ethonal has created massive feed problems for livestock producers. So there should be no reason for high oil prices.
So with the oil companies making MASSIVE amounts of money recently you have to wonder.
You also have to wonder when you look at a lot of the people in the White HOuse and the various companies they've worked for...
Posted by: Joshua at April 4, 2008 10:50 PM
Check out this gas related new article. Oil companies are lowing production of gas to increase $$$.
http://ca.news.finance.yahoo.com/s/04042008/2/biz-finance-gas-prices-rise-record-refiners-cut-production-boost.html
Posted by: Joshua at April 5, 2008 09:28 PM
I have seen the pictures of the Simpsons before on bathrooms but what made me laugh more was in Seattle the port-a-potty's were called "Honey Buckets." It's in my collection of photos from there!
Posted by: Mike Mathison at April 10, 2008 11:36 AM
Who knew that the potty humor would draw so much interest, haha. Do you remember where that restaurant was, Jeff? And Mike, that's hilarious, where is the photo of that?
Posted by: Jared at April 13, 2008 12:38 AM