Friday, April 25, 2008

No trespassing beyond this point


I recently came across this sign just outside the Continetal Golf Course which said "NO TRESPASSING BEYOND THIS POINT". Is it just me or does the English and logic appear to be wrong? I get the impression that trespassing BEFORE this point is okay but BEYOND this point is not okay...

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The time is right to reach your goals

The fortune cookie (which I rarely eat) that came with lunch today said "THE TIME IS RIGHT TO REACH YOUR GOALS." The caps are theirs not mine.

This couldn't be more off target. They've given it to a man who has no goals.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Wellness Score



Work is having a wellness drive and we've been encouraged to fill out a wellness survey with our health provider. Apparently I'm 96 well and 4 unwell. I'm not sure what the units are, perhaps it's percent. If so, I think that the 4% unwellness is my nose which is easily big enough to represent 4% of my body and has been sneezing recently.

Aparently I don't eat enough fruit and veg...

Saturday, April 19, 2008

I sweat asymmetrically

I wear a helmet when cycling to work and I've been doing this for a few months now. Yesterday I noticed that the right strap that keeps the helmet on my noggin has turned white and stiff from salt crystals. Careful inspection of the left strap shows no salt. I can only conclude from this that I'm a right-hand-side sweater or as we in the sweating business call it right-asymmetrical-sweater.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

I dreamt in Sixes

I had a wacky dream last night. It was about bees and their math. I dreamt that the reason that bees create combs with six sided hexagon shapes is because, as insects, they have six legs and hence count to the base six.

Computers count in binary, 1's and 0's. That's because each of place in memory can be either on or off. Humans count in decimal because we have 10 digits, 8 of which we call fingers and 2 thumbs.

It's obvious then that bees should use base 6 to count and that should make it equally obvious why the cells in honeycomb are hexagonal.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Talking Stick

I've just discovered what the Navajo's Talking Stick is. I always thought that it was magical stick that spoke to the Shaman. It turns out that in debates or council meetings, only the person holding the talking stick can talk. If you want to talk you have to wait until the stick is passed to you and you cannot take it. How cool is that? The next time I go drinking with Vern and Rob I'm taking a Talking Stick along with me. Then at least I'll get to say something...

Lost Miles

A friend at work introduced me to a really cool site: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ which allows you to measure your hike/walk etc. On the plus side this is great because it means that I can accurately measure my cycle to work. On the down side I discovered that I'm cycling 7 miles and not 7.6 so I'm losing 1.2 miles a day or a total of 29.4 miles since I started this route.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Racing Lizards

My cycle to work takes me along 6 miles of the Central Arizona Project Canal (CAPC). I'm kept out of the water by an 8 foot fence. This fence is also troublesome for the wildlife that are in the track which are trying to get out of the way of the bike. They are mostly desert cottontails, quail, and lizards. Eventually they find a hole in the fence and dart through before I catch up to them. The quail remember that they can fly and take off at the last minute.

This morning a large lizard took off next to me and kept pace for about 100 yards. It never found a hole and eventually just stopped. I couldn't work out if he'd stopped because he was exhausted and had run out of steam or just didn't consider me a threat anymore.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Blogger's Captcha

Whenever I post a blog to this blog here on Wild Fiction I get asked to answer and solve a captcha. I'm sure you have seen this type of thing before and are familiar with it so I'm not going to explain it.

Here is the captcha that I've been given for this blog post before it will "go live."





Now what do you think it says? I'm guessing that it's "oogafk" and I'm pretty sure that I'm right.

However, I've noticed that blogger never accepts my initial guess when posting a blog. No matter how right I am it says that I'm wrong and gives me another captcha. The second one I always get right. I'm guessing that this is a bug.

Flexible online menu

I've just been tasked with ordering a vegetarian pizza from CPK. Their menu is big and paging through it online looking for the vegetarian options is a chore.

That's when it struck me about how cool it would be if restaurants gave you the ability to reduce their online menu to what you can eat and perhaps even allow you to order it by your favorite types of food.

So if you're allergic to fish or nuts or if you're a vegetarian, kosher or halal eater you can select what is acceptable and what is not. Also, by ranking your preferences for different food types those dishes that had your favorite bits in them would be listed at the top.

Does anybody know of any online menus that do this?

Do I look fat in this?

My wife approached me from behind and asked me "Do I look fat in this?"

Now I know the answer to this question so I had already answered it correctly before I had turned around to look at her.

"Phat is spelled P.H.A.T." she said. "It stands for Pretty Hot And Tasty."

"In that case you're definitely phat," I replied.

This question promises to be more and more difficult to answer in the future...