Watch This Wednesday #6: This is Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

For today's clip, I bring you the introduction to Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" which is out in 3-D this year, and while I haven't seen it, I heard good things about it from some friends who went. In conjunction with the re-release of the film, there was a special edition Soundtrack released as well with covers of the film's songs, and this clip of the Intro is set to a Marilyn Manson cover of the song. There is also a Panic at the Disco version out there if you search on YouTube.

The I scream of the future

I'm sure you've all seen "Dippin' Dots" at some sporting event or at a special stand at the mall. They're tiny balls of super-chilled ice cream that they mix together to create different flavors. I'm not sure how long they've been around, but its been at least 15 years I would guess. Anyway, they still are labeled as the "Ice cream of the future". Not sure when that future is going to arrive. Right now I feel like its the "Ice cream of 1996". Were people that bummed out by ice cream? Were people looking for something new in the ice cream arena?

Anyway, the whole reason I started this post was to say that I was at a hockey game on Friday and at a vendor stall where they were selling these "Dippin' Dots - Ice Cream of the Future", they listed them on the menu as "Dip and Dots". At first I thought maybe it was some knock-off, wannabe ice cream of the future with a strikingly similar name. Then I noticed a special "Dippinl Dots" sign hanging in one area of the stall. So clearly someone had just mistaken the name "Dippin' Dots" as "Dip 'n' Dots" and then put it on the menu as "Dip and Dots". Someday I'll have a camera phone that takes acceptably see-able pictures and I'll be able to record these bizarre moments in signage. For now you'll just have to take my word for it.

Sometimes the tooth hurts

I went to the dentist this morning to get a filling adjusted that was causing me some discomfort, and in the end, I think I did get that problem fixed, but ended up leaving with a new trouble spot. Its always so hard for me to tell how its going to be until I leave and eat something. I'm starting to get pretty frustrated with the whole situation. I feel bad that I keep having problems, but I don't think its my fault. I'm not the dentist. He is.

Meta-Blogging

Quick note, I just added a couple things to the side menu today. First is a list of the the labels that any of my posts have, so you can get to those easily. Second is a list of books that I've read, or am currently reading. Just FYI.

Different Box, Same Drug?

So, last night I figured I better get to the store and pick up some cold medicine to get some help getting over the sore throat and other suspicious symptoms I was suffering. In the past, I've found Tylenol Cold to be helpful, so I started looking for that in the medicine aisle at Wal-mart. Turns out there are now several varieties of Tylenol Cold. The first one I found was Tylenol Cold - Head Congestion, which seemed about like what I wanted, except that I didn't have much congestion, and I was actually sensing maybe a touch of fever.



After some more looking I found Tylenol Cold - Multi-Symptom, which listed Fever as one of the things it was good for.



But now that I was holding both boxes, I realized that both boxes listed the same active ingredients. I thought, "hmm...maybe there's a different ratio of ingredients between these two." Further inspection of the packaging revealed that, at least as far as I could tell, there was absolutely no difference between the two products. The amounts of each active ingredient, the warnings, everything. Is that weird or what?

From Tylenol's website:

Tylenol Cold Head Congestion Day/Night Pack

Daytime Ingredients:

Active Ingredients
-Acetaminophen
325 mg in each caplet
-Dextromethorphan HBr 10 mg in each caplet
-Phenylephrine HCl
5 mg in each caplet

Inactive Ingredients
Carnauba wax, castor oil, cellulose, corn starch, flavors, hypromellose, iron oxide, silicon dioxide, sodium starch glycolate, stearic acid, sucralose

Nighttime Ingredients:

Active Ingredients
-Acetaminophen
325 mg in each caplet
-Chlorpheniramine maleate 2 mg in each caplet
-Dextromethorphan HBr 10 mg in each caplet
-Phenylephrine HCl
5 mg in each caplet

Inactive Ingredients
Carnauba wax, cellulose, corn starch, FD&C blue #1, flavors, hypromellose, iron oxide, polyethylene glycol, polysorbate 80, silicon dioxide, sodium starch glycolate, stearic acid, sucralose, titanium dioxide

Tylenol Cold Multisymptom Day/Night Pack

Daytime Ingredients:

Active Ingredients
-Acetaminophen, 325 mg in each caplet
-Dextromethorphan HBr, 10 mg in each caplet
-Phenylephrine HCl, 5 mg in each caplet

Inactive Ingredients
Carnauba wax, castor oil, cellulose, corn starch, flavors, hypromellose, iron oxide, silicon dioxide, sodium starch glycolate, stearic acid, sucralose

Nighttime Ingredients:

Active Ingredients
-Acetaminophen, 325 mg in each caplet
-Chlorpheniramine maleate, 2 mg in each caplet
-Dextromethorphan HBr, 10 mg in each caplet
-Phenylephrine HCl, 5 mg in each caplet

Inactive Ingredients
Carnauba wax, cellulose, corn starch, FD&C blue #1, flavors, hypromellose, iron oxide, polyethylene glycol, polysorbate 80, silicon dioxide, sodium starch glycolate, stearic acid, sucralose, titanium dioxide

Watch This Wednesday #5: Halloween! A witch with magic!

As mentioned a couple years ago in this post, a friend of mine gets people together for old Halloween specials and chili in the weeks before Halloween, and one of the cartoons is called "Witch's Night Out". Anyway, someone finally posted the theme song portion of the show to YouTube, although it almost seems like someone must have just pointed a camera at their TV to digitize it. Anyway, for some reason I always like this song.

I think I'm loosing my mind

UPDATE (10/22/07): Sometimes lately I feel like I'm fighting a loosing battle. Everywhere I look, people are loosing things. Not so much in published pieces, although I do catch it there occasionally , but definitely its rampant in online text. I realize that words change when you add -ing at the end, but if anything it would be the consonant that would change from lose to lossing, but not even that rule applies here. C'mon people. I feel like I'm loosing you. The next time I hear someone use it like that I'm going to tell them to "Get Loosed". That'll show them.

UPDATE (9/11/06): The article has now been fixed. Should have taken a screen cap to post here. Oh well. At least someone, somewhere, realizes that loose does not mean the same as lose.

UPDATE (9/11/06): Long time readers will remember the post below where I bemoaned the use of the word "loose" in the place of "lose". Just this morning I am perusing the online version of the Salt Lake Tribune, only to find this headline: "Needy Utahns loose food stamps." Maybe I have loosed my mind.

********************************

And not just because a post that I had up disappeared and had to be salvaged from a permanent link that a friend's feed reader happened to hang on to.

It actually because I've seen the word "loose" be used to mean "lose" so many time lately that I'm starting to wonder if I'm the one using it incorrectly. I was just reading someone's profile that said "I love loosing myself in a good book." Last semester when I was grading papers I saw the word "loose" used uncountable times in place of "lose". And these are graduate students. Granted not all of them speak great English, but every team had some born and raised "Englicans." You would think that they would pick that up in proofreading (not that the quality of writing indicated any kind of proofreading).

Did I miss somewhere where this was an alternate spelling or something?

Watch This Wednesday #4: I'm a miracle man

This week, I bring you a scene from what, to me, is the most re-watchable of M. Night Shyamalan's films, Signs. Unlike some of his other movies, this one doesn't hinge so much on a crazy plot twist, although you could argue there is a bit of a big "reveal" at the end. Anyway, I think its the most re-watchable because of the humorous elements in the film. One of my favorite scenes is the one where Mel Gibson explains that people break down into two categories: those who believe in miracles and those who don't, and asks Joaquin Phoenix which category he is in.

Fun with catalogs

There's a Flickr user who scans in old catalogs page by page along with other things. Just in the first few pages I found this picture of a stereo from 1986:



The sad part? My parents still own essentially this exact stereo. Other than a few cosmetic differences, this is a picture of my parents' stereo. I keep thinking we could replace it with something one-fifth the size, but then I think, without the big stereo speakers, where would they keep the phone?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #14: When Latin goes astray

A few years ago in a course on Medicine for Scientists and Engineers we spend a while looking at the parts of Medical vocabulary and seeing often by understanding the Latin roots of a word you could figure out what it meant. Occasionally its not that easy. For example the word "orthopedic" has the roots ortho- and -ped- in it. "Ortho" means straight, and "ped" can mean either foot or child (not sure how that works). So orthopedics should have something to do with straightening feet or straightening children, and originally it must have been coined in that context. Now it refers to "A branch of medicine that focuses on injuries and diseases of the musculoskeletal system (the body's muscles, skeleton, and related tissues), including the spine, joints, ligaments, tendons, and nerves." (link) Essentially, there is some straightening and/or fixing of bones and muscles going on.

So thats a term thats drifted a bit from its original meaning. However, the real drift comes in the way the word 'orthopedic' has been commandeered by companies in search of medical sounding trademarks. I'm thinking specifically of Sealy's 'Posturepedic' mattresses. Sadly, they've taken the wrong part of the word 'orthopedic' for their product. Their mattresses apparently promote posture for kids and/or feet. Maybe they should change the name to Sealy Postorthotic Mattresses.

Watch This Wednesday #3: You're The Best!..Around!

This week's clip comes to us courtesy of The Karate Kid. I have a hard time imagining that someone out there has never seen this, but just in case, this is a montage from the All-Valley Karate Tournament featuring a great song by Joe "Bean" Esposito.

You might be having bizarre car troubles if...

...if the parts guy at the dealership spends half an hour on his computer, and still needs to look under your car twice to figure out what he thinks is the part that needs replacing.

...if the part he orders for you is so obscure that it only returns 3 hits on Google.

...if you ask the service staff at the dealership if they'd be able to install it for you and they say, "Well I can't say for sure since I've never heard of that, but probably."

Question for you

So, several years ago, I told a friend to look for my calculator in the back pocket of my backpack. He looked in the wrong pocket and said "its not here", and I said "no the BACK pocket". Please take a moment to click where it says "Comments" at the bottom of this post and tell me which pocket on a backpack you consider to be the "back pocket."

Watch This Wednesday #2: Moon Child!

If you grew up in the 80s you've probably seen The Neverending Story, and if you're like me, you could never figure out what the heck Bastien yells out the window at the end, when he has to give the empress a new name. Well thanks to the Internet, I was able to find out that supposedly he yells "Moon Child", although in my memory it was pretty much an unintelligible scream. Well I found the clip, and I'm posting it here, and you can see for yourself, that "Moon Child" actually does sound like what he yells, although why Bastien's mother was named Moon Child, that I can't answer.



Also, as a bonus Watch This, I'm including one of my favorite parts of the movie, which I'll simply call, "They look like big...good...strong...hands...don't they?"

Only 9 Years? I thought Google invented the Internet

Today is Google's 9th birthday. Personally, I guess I've only been Googling things for about 6 years, but it really seems like Google is a mile marker for the Internet. Meaning the advent of Google seems to have happened along with the Internet starting to look a lot better. Fewer frames, more good design.

Anyway, who could have guessed that 9 years later Google would be providing me with free email and blogging and RSS feed reading, along with permanently living in a search box in my browser window. Now if only they could get a few more modules on iGoogle, I might be able to ditch Yahoo! completely.

Watch This Wednesday #1: I Said Good Day, Sir!

As promised yesterday, I'm starting a new feature, where basically I find a video to share with you. At least starting out, I'm going to be showing favorite clips from movies, limited of course to what I can find online. I haven't quite mastered the whole getting pieces of videos that I already own and doing something with them other than watching them.

This week, I give you a favorite scene from the REAL Willy Wonka, Mr. Gene Wilder. My only regret is that this clip, of which I found two versions, omits the first part of the rant, where Mr. Wonka spouts some Latin. However, if you click through to the actual webpage on YouTube, the text of the first part of the rant is there. In fact, since that person doesn't actually own the copyright on the text, I feel okay about giving it to you here:

Wrong, sir! Wrong! Under section 37B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if - and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy - "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained," et cetera, et cetera..."Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum," et cetera, et cetera..."Memo bis punitor delicatum!" It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!

Some of my favorite lines to quote:
"Its all there! Black and white! Clear as crystal!"
"Build up a little boy's hopes and then smash all his dreams to pieces."

Buttered Pop Tarts

You know how growing up you assume that everyone else lives the same life as you and then as you grow up and meet other people you slowly find out that you do some things differently than everyone else. Growing up we could never have the Pop-Tarts with frosting on them, because that would be dessert, not breakfast. Not that we got Pop-Tarts, with or without frosting, all that often. So pretty much they were a delicacy. Anyway, when you toast the unfrosted Pop-Tarts, putting butter on them is pretty much the only way to go. The butter melts into the crust, it's great all around.

Lately I've been finding out that putting butter on Pop-Tarts is greeted with a near universal "huh?", followed by a semi-universal, "wait, what? gross." Not sure why no one else I've talked to lately has ever done this. Probably because they only eat frosted Pop-Tarts. It's rare to ever see more than the strawberry flavored Pop-Tarts in the unfrosted form these days, although I did happen upon some unfrosted blueberry about a month ago. Anyway, I think they are great, and I encourage you to try it out.

The todo nebula

I know I haven't been the best blogger ever lately. My mind has been pretty jumpy lately and I'm having a hard time focusing on much of anything. I need to take some time and write out what all I need to get done I think. A lot of times when I'm feeling unsettled like this its because I have this nebulous feeling that there are things I need to do, but I can't put my finger on them. And when I feel that way, it really helps me to write down everything that I need to do, and then attack that in an organized way. In any case, I do plan to attack the blogging in a similar organized fashion, with at least one small weekly item (coming Wednesdays this fall!), and maybe something a tad more substantial if I decide my hectic life can handle it. In the meantime, I found a topic I wanted to write about in the draftbin, and you can check that out in a bit once I finish writing it up.

Great things in September 18th History

From wikipedia:

Year:

323 - Constantine the Great decisively defeats Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire.
1502 - Christopher Columbus lands at Costa Rica on his fourth, and final, voyage.
1793 - The first cornerstone of the Capitol building is laid by George Washington.
1810 - First Government Junta in Chile. Though supposed to rule only in the absence of the king, it was in fact the first step towards independence from Spain, and it is commemorated as such.
1851 - The New-York Daily Times, which will become The New York Times, begins publishing.
1952 - Rick Pitino born.
1970 - Jimi Hendrix found dead in his basement in London.
1974 - Xzibit born.
1978 - BigDigital blog author, "J" born.
1982 - First smiley-face Emoticon sent by Carnegie Mellon Professor Scott Fahlman.

Yes, thats right, today Xzibit is 33 years old, and Chile celebrates 197 years of independence.

And yes, today is my birthday, too. If you enjoy the blog, leave me a comment. I'll turn on anonymous commenting for those of you who don't have a blogger account for a day or two as well.

Still scratching my head...

Saturday I had the great pleasure of being in attendance at the Utah-UCLA football game in which my beloved Utes totally humbled the previously-#11 Bruins to the tune of 44-6. Given that to date we'd looked horribly lost on offense, and a little worn out on defense, it was a stunning turn of events to say the least. I couldn't find anyone who wanted to come, and in the end I just ended up sitting with my buddy Gary and his brother. At halftime, Gary's nose started to bleed and in the end, he had to go to the hospital and get looked at. So, I watched nearly the entire second half with total strangers, but it was still a great game to watch. I also happened to take my camera with me, so here are some pictures and a video:






The Huddle...


...Lining up...


...Touchdown Darrell Mack!


There are more photos here. But this one pretty much says it all.