Thousand Words

A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, right? So if you have a typical video that shows 29.97 frames per second, that video should theoretically be worth 29,970 words per second. One minute of video would be worth 1,798,200 words, and an hour would gross 107,892,000 words. So let’s say you have 30 movies that are an hour and a half each. That’s 4,855,140,000 words right there on your bookshelf.

Even my wife doesn’t talk that much.

Majority Report

Number of Josh's Born

Good news for all the Josh’s in the world (a.k.a. almost everyone). The rate at which parents are punishing their kids by naming them Josh is declining. This could mean one of two things. Either people are getting more creative when they’re naming their kids, or Josh’s have just made a bad impression on the world.

The Contract

I’m in the middle of a process that I call the most depressing thing in the world. I’m buying a house. I’d be happy to just pay for the house, but that’s not how a mortgage works. In the end I will have paid enough money for two and a half houses. (That’s more than 2 million Ramen Noodles!) The word “mortgage” begins with the first four letters of the word “mortuary” for a reason. You’ll be paying it off until you’re dead. I’ve signed a paper that says I’ll be dumping my income into a black hole for the next 30 years. Other fees include my firstborn son, my soul, a bucket of pretty pennies, two arms and a leg, and any other expression you can think of that means a lot of money.

Extra Cheese

I catch myself sometimes using the words cheesy and corny with the same meaning, but I’ve started to wonder if they mean the same thing or not. I checked out the nutritional facts and found that cheesy is defined as “cheap or poor quality” while corny is synonymous with “old-fashioned and unoriginal.” While cheesy sounds more tasteful to me initially, I think corny might be more wholesome and satisfying.

Hard Candy

To name your ice cream dessert a Blizzard makes sense. It’s cold and swirled together like a blizzard. But how does Culvers get away with naming their clone of the Blizzard a “Concrete Mixer”? Is it hard and gravelly like concrete? Did they get their inspiration from a cement truck? I imagine concrete tasting something like being kicked in the face. I would have liked to be in the room when they invented it. “Lets mix together some sand and gravel and clay and sell it as a dessert. Maybe people will become attached to it when it hardens in their throat!”

Immature

Immature Video Game RatingI’m sure there’s a very good reason why they have video game ratings. No one who’s 17+ would want to play a game that’s rated E for Extremely boring. And no child should be allowed to play a game that’s rated M for Mature.

But my question is, why would anyone who is “Mature” be playing video games in the first place?

Preferred Customer

It all began one quiet, cold morning. I walked out to my car with my glass half full and my stomach half empty. Everything was looking like every other day, except for a little orange ticket that was wedged under my wiper blade and frozen onto my windshield. I studied it for a bit and noticed that “Alternate Parking” was checked. I wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but I went and paid the ticket like a good little boy.

A while later, and a little farther into the winter season, I found another slip attached to my car. This wasn’t a ticket, but a notice explaining the alternate parking city ordinance. Basically, in the winter you park on the even numbered side of the street on the even days. So I began following this as well as I understood it. I soon discovered the wisdom in parking on the side where most of the cars were parked. Genius.

Needless to say, I ended up with another ticket. That was it. I was now determined to never get another parking ticket. From then on, I always checked the date and the house numbers to make sure I was on the right side of the road. This worked until I moved into a new apartment with a parking lot. Pretty sweet, until all the parking spots are taken and you’re left out on the street again. This time I drove up and down the street squinting in the dark to find which was the odd side. I compulsively checked the date several times. No worries this time.

To make a short story long, I got another ticket, was totally confused, drove up and down the street again just to check, was going to call the police to dispute, found on their website they changed the effective date without notice from before midnight to after 2am, emptied my glass to halfway, and paid the ticket like a good little boy.

I’ve now accepted that parking tickets are just a source of income for the police. They pick out random cars to ticket and reap the profits. I am merely a preferred customer.