Saturday, September 27, 2008

Prime mortage, prime rib, prime numbers....

Get a couple of computers, at lot of people at UCLA with too much time on their hands, and wola!...Come up with the longest biggest prime number. From Fox News; it is a 13 million digit prime number which now becomes the 46th Mersenne prime (named from a French mathematician Marine Mersenne). Prime numbers are only divisible by 1. Read about it here http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429201,00.html. I'll have to jot it down myself. It may come in handy some day.

I gotta get me one of these....

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/004440.html

there would be no excuse for not bagging a deer during hunting season.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Bonus Video - Brewers almost in the playoffs

In honor of the big win tonight against the Cubs, and the fact the brewers are a Win (and Mets loss) away from the playoffs for the first time in 26 long years, please enjoy a little Brewers Love:


Friday Night's Lost Video

In 1988, Kieth Richards, guitarist extraordinaire put out a solo album with a back up band called The Xpensive Winos. The song is called "Take It So Hard" and features Keith on Lead Vocals. Who know Keith could sing ( sort of)........ Enjoy!



OPEN BLOG - HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!!!

Well gang, we've made it to Friday, yeah!!!!
What's on your mind today??

Thursday, September 25, 2008

A couple of things . . .

There's a new section on the upper left sidebar of our page entitled 'Features.' It contains links to the most recent posts in some of the blogs that appear regularly here. If you'd like to post a regular blog and have it listed in Features, email me at: thesheriff@jtirregulars.com Also, if you already do one, please consider emailing me when you post your latest blog so that I can update the link as soon as possible.

At the bottom of the Features links is JTI CHAT. Some interest was expressed at the picnic about the previous Talkinator feature. There were problems with its size, though, and placement. We've decided to try it out on its own page. Right now, it's as big as it gets (500 pixels x 500 pixels) before it starts to distort. Let us know how you like it.

Finally, just below the West Racine weather on the sidebar, there is a new link to the Fall Color Report for Wisconsin. Drewzepmeister originally provided that link in a comment.

OK, that was more than a couple of things. That was three things.

And that made it four.

Going Up North

Going up North this weekend,to visit my family and get away from the insanity of the city. Out there in the boondocks,I'm going to do some fishing with my boy,go 4 wheelin' in the woods with our ATV's ,and maybe get some fall pictures.
So where does everybody when go when they want to getaway? Any vacation mermories?

The Quick Edit Pencil Icons Are Back

Previous blog here: http://www.jtirregulars.com/2008/09/where-are-quick-edit-links.html

We tried every fix that blogspot offered to restore the quick edit links, but nothing worked. We even posted a query on the Google Groups site. Still nothing.

Then, this morning, almost three days (the "transition period") to the minute after changing our URL address, they reappeared.

Thank you, o mighty gods of Google!

Day 4 Chuckle

Hypnotist at the Senior Center

It was entertainment night at the Senior Center. Claude the hypnotist announced, 'I'm here to put you into a trance; I intend to hypnotize each and every member of the audience.'The excitement was almost electric as Claude withdrew a beautiful antique pocket watch from his coat. 'I want you each to keep your eyes on this antique watch. It's a very special watch. It's been in my family for six generations.'


He began to swing the watch gently back and forth while quietly chanting: 'Watch the watch, watch the watch, watch the watch...'

The crowd became mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, light gleaming off its polished surface. Hundreds of pairs of eyes followed the swaying watch, until, suddenly, it slipped from the hypnotist's finger and fell to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces.; 'SHIT!' exclaimed the hypnotist.


It took three days to clean up the Senior Center.

Brooklyn Man Dies After Police Use a Taser Gun



"A naked and apparently emotionally disturbed man fell to his death from a building ledge in Brooklyn on Wednesday after an officer shot him with a Taser stun gun, the police said."

I dunno. Seems kind of cold to Taser him knowing that there's concrete ten feet below, but I'm not a cop and I wasn't there. Maybe the lesson is: don't threaten police with a fluorescent light tube.

While naked.

And climbing a fire escape.

Downtown Racine to be on TV

Charkes Gibson bringing World News broadcast here

All Residents of Beckerville (aka Downtown) Ordered on Best Behavior

"Put on your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes," people urged.

Regular Racine Residents Warned: Stay Away!

"We don't want the world's perception of Racine to be distorted by the reality of the city," said one local government official, "so we're asking that the poor, the unemployed, the criminal, and all the other undesirables find somewhere else to go on October 9. Is that too much to ask?"

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dear Madame Zoltar

Hello everyone! It’s time for our weekly wander through the realm of the unknown.

Our first question today comes from SER, who wrote: “I want to plan a trip...
What are the winning numbers going to be for Wednesday night’s Megabucks drawing?”

Dear Mr. SER: Of course, if I publish the winning numbers here, everyone who reads this will play them and there will be thousands of winners. Then you will maybe win a couple of dollars.

So, for security’s sake, I have sent the winning numbers to you telepathically. By now you should have received them and purchased your ticket. Congratulations, enjoy your trip, and please don’t forget my 15% gratuity.

Next, is a comment, I think, from a person, I think, who goes by the name ‘Karl Is Mad’:

Bom bom bom
I illiterate your fate with the back of my hand
and I'm crazy like a hound dog
no wait it's too late
I open heaven and then get shot down at the gate
and I have a gat
blat blat blat
I'm V-dub McLub with a ace o' club
skat skat skat skeet
wut up i have souls on my fiz-eet.
neat

Dear Mr. Karl Is Mad: Thank you for your interest in JT Irregulars.

Next is this from ‘Worried on Williams Street’: “Dear Madame Zoltar, I am very concerned about our economy. It seems like there is complete chaos on Wall Street and I don’t trust our government to do the right thing. (You know, the two biggest lies are ‘The check is in the mail,’ and ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.’) I’ve worked hard all my life for what I have and now I’m afraid it will disappear down a fiscal black hole. What do you suggest?”

Dear Worried: Are you old enough to remember the Marshall Plan? After World War II, we rebuilt the infrastructures and economies of our vanquished foes. Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that today we’ve lost the new war called Global Economy 101. I suggest that we surrender immediately and apply for aid from our conquerors. I also suggest taking some language classes in Arabic and/or Japanese. 幸運 !

[Confidential to Scandalized in City Hall: Slipping Antabuse into his coffee is probably illegal. Besides, I kind of look forward to watching him make an ass of himself at Party on the Pavement.]

That’s this week’s blog, my friends. I hope you enjoyed it. Please remember to keep those questions and comments coming to: madamezoltar@jtirregulars.com

I hope you all have a very pleasant week and don’t forget, Madame Zoltar is watching over you. Au revoir!

How to Peel an Egg

This is too crazy; I may need to boil some eggs just to try it...

Instructions:

1. Cover the eggs with water and boil on low for about 12 minutes
2. Cool the eggs by placing them in cold water with 1 teaspoon of baking soda and ice. The baking soda raises the pH level and reduces adherence. If you choose not to use baking soda, be sure to move the eggs into cold water with plenty of ice immediately after boiling
3. Crack the top of the egg and remove a small piece
4. Crack the bottom (wide end) of the egg and remove a small piece
5. Hold the egg in your hand and blow vigorously into the narrow end of the egg, which will expel it out the wide end


Doesn’t get much easier than that! Just be ready to catch it when it comes out…





Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I Have No Idea What This Says About the Election...


Amazon.com sells these paper Halloween masks. As of right now, the Obama mask is ranked #1013 and the McCain mask is ranked #2456 in their best sellers. Does it mean that Obama is a beloved figure and will trounce McCain or that lots more people find him scary so McCain is really in the driver's seat?

Where Are The Quick Edit Links?

The Quick Edit links were those little yellow pencil links that appeared at the bottom right of the blogs we post:



If you saw an error in your blog after it was posted, or wanted to change something, you could just click on the pencil to go back to compose mode for that blog. They disappeared with our old url address and haven't been seen since. They are sorely missed.

The JTI staff is working feverishly on solving this problem. It probably is due to our address change, and, with any luck, it will resolve itself when the three day "transition" period is over. However, we will continue to prosecute the matter with the utmost diligence and concern.

In the meantime, you can edit your posted blogs the old fashioned way: from the website's main page, select the New Post link on the upper right:




When that opens to a new posting page, select the Edit Posts link on the left, next to Create:






From there, you can select which of your posts you wish to edit:












Please come back lil' Quick Edit. We miss you.

Safety Message


Don't forget to check your smoke and heat alarms.

Free at last, oh free at last.

Dag gone glitchy puter. Had a good time at the picnic. In fine form I made sure to wear my School's base ball cap. Located in sunny Henrieta New York, R.I.T. (Rochester Institute of Technology) had a fraternity selling hats for South Henrieta Institute of Technology. (S.H.I.T.) So here I am all freshly arrived to Pets and there is a group nice and close to the parking lot. A guy walks up to me and I ask, "Is this the picnic for the irregular support group?"

He looks at me, glances at my hat, gets a real weird look on his face and shudders as he says no. Now I'm quite oblivious forgetting what my hat says, but after time passed all I can think was the poor Iregular folks I was with across the way must have had a LOT of gossip about us from this first group afterI rolled away.

It was good meeting all of you and I think Orbs is bald. Only say this because the ball cap never came off. :-) I was actually sick from being overly full. That made for a great nap later that afternoon.

As I said when I was asked, next meet place, AMSTERDAM!

We Have A New Address

We are now officially at http://www.jtirregulars.com/
Please change your bookmarks/favorites accordingly.

This change should allow more people in more places to visit our website.

The old address, http://jtirregulars.blogspot.com/, will soon be redirecting to the new one.

Bumped on 9/23/08:

This conversion should present no problems to current users of this site. Login and posting procedures remain the same. You do not need to change anything. A number of bugs have popped up during the conversion process, though, and we're working on them.

We do have new email addresses for JT Irregulars: jtirregulars@jtirregulars.com and thesheriff@jtirregulars.com
(The old addresses will continue to be monitored for awhile.) Please contact us if you have any difficulty with the site.

Email addresses at the jtirregulars domain are available for those who want them. You can have an address with your username@jtirregulars.com, but you do NOT need one of those to access, post on, or read this site. If you want a JTI email address, send an email to one of the above addresses.

Thank you for your patience during this time. Our intention in changing the address of the site was to make it available to more people, and we already know that has worked. Yay! More Irregulars means more fun!

Monday, September 22, 2008

"The Front Fell Off..."

I just received the following very funny video forwarded from a friend...it shows that even massive oil spills can be funny.



As I hope at least some of you suspect, this isn't real (the Senator not being named first aroused my suspicion...progressively more ridiculous answers raised it higher). It is the Australian comedy duo John Clarke and Bryan Dawe. This video is debunked on Snopes. Even more amazing, this comes from the early '90s, so it just shows that some old legends can find new life on the internet.

The person who initially forwarded this passed it on as a real interview. I can look at the chain of people it went through and I know several of them. They are smart people (maybe too trusting sometimes) who got taken in by this video as being the real thing.

This once again points out the problems with trusting the validity of forwarded emails. I haven't posted there in a long time, but it seems this problem is epidemic on the old JT site these days (if you have looked there recently, you know the posters I am talking about!) Although this particular email was not political in nature, it is important to apply the same level of critical thinking skills to political posts as it is to these fluffier emails.

It is easy to be skeptical of claims made by your political opponents. It is tougher, and even more important, to be just as skeptical of the claims politicians you support.

Concert Memories

I've been to at least three dozen concerts over the years. Many of them excellent shows. So many memories. One of them was the second time I saw Rush at Alpine Valley on June 17,1990.
It was a beautiful night and the moon was full. Hair metal band Mr. Big opened up the show playing their mediocre power ballads. Rush lit up place with a two hour show playing tunes from though out their career as well as their well known songs like "Tom Sawyer","The Spirit of Radio" and "YYZ".
The most impressive part of the show was the light show,which I felt was worth the ticket price alone. They had lasers everywhere. Off of the buildings in the back,in trees, and down thr aisles. Very impressive!
So what is your favorite concert or concert moment? If you have never been to a concert,what is your favorite moment in sports games,comedy shows,or whatever you been to. I'd like to hear stories.

This is stuck in my head, and now it will be stuck in yours too!

In researching videos for my postings last night, the wayback machine in my head remembered this annoying little nugget of music from a band called Ween, and of course I watched the video and now its stuck in my head and Im wistling it at work. (Plus the bass player freaks me out!) Get ready to have your brain infected by "Push tha' Little Daisies"


What, Me Worry?


http://news.racinepost.com/2008/09/mayor-police-chief-give-hispanics.html

The Racine Post is a respectable website run by responsible people who are devoted to the welfare and improvement of Racine. Please do not post nasty or offensive comments there. That's what this site is for.

Party on, Becker!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Bonus Video - Classic 80's

Back in 1984, this song was playing in the clubs and college radio. The band is called Talk Talk and the song is called "It's My Life". I still keep getting pulled back to it. And the original is so much better than the hack job No Doubt's version was. Sit back and enjoy a true 80's classic.


Firday night's lost video - Sunday version

Sorry for the delay guys. Been a little busy this weekend, but will be back on schedule next week!

Tonights song is from a band called The Dead Milkmen. Underated band, fun song. Enjoy "Punk Rock Girl".



Happy Equinox

Tomorrow is the first day of fall...well, at least from an astronomical sense. Astronomical fall begins on the day the Sun passes directly over the equator. On this day, the Sun will rise directly in the East and set directly in the west (if you live on an east-west street, watch the Sun rise and set at the end of your street!)

For meteorologists, however, fall is old news. Meteorologists define fall as the months of September, October and November.

Oh, and you can forget the nonsense about standing eggs on end on the equinox. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day takes on that with with Phil Plait standing eggs on end on a random day in October.

MoreCowbell.dj


Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj


I did Denise by Randy & the Rainbows "with 86% cowbell and 92% Walken."

Do Water Bears Push Each Other Out Airlocks in Their Science Fiction Stories?

Well, it wouldn't be the most effective ways for these little guys to kill their enemies. Water bears (proper name tardigrades) were launched into space aboard the European Space Agency's Foton M3 spacecraft last year. Water bears are small (about 1.5mm) long creatures They were exposed to the vacuum and radiation of space in various combinations and, even when exposed to the vacuum and UV radiation of space, researchers found a good number of survivors.

"So who cares?" I hear the naysayers cry. Surviving the high radiation environment indicates their cells have a remarkable ability to repair DNA damage. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see potential medical benefits to us in figuring out how they repair this damage. If we can isolate the genes or proteins, we could use it to reduce damage to healthy cells in cancer therapy. I could even see preventive therapies coming from this type of research in the future.

And I sure hope they figure out how these guys pull it off in case I am ever thrown out an airlock of a spaceship by my evil nemesis!