i was reminded that i went to sunday school as a kid. i strained myself trying to remember ANYTHING from all those wasted years. here's what i came up with:

1) the guy who directed traffic in the parking lot was very obnoxious. He'd give the big windmill "i'm sending you from third to home to win the world series" arm gesture when it was our turn to go. it always drove me crazy.

2) me and a kid had a runny nose one day, but it was during the time period where i was self conscious about blowing my nose in public (actually, i'm still self conscious about that). we were sniffing so loudly, that the teacher actually handed us the tissue box. That always offended me.

3) when i was "older", we were in a class taught by a nun. My friend sitting next to me was leaning back on his chair, and as a joke, i was going to pretend to pull it out from him. unfortunately, i pulled too hard, and he fell. i got yelled at. 30 minutes later, i thought it would be funny to pretend to do it again. but once again, i pulled too hard.

4) in highschool, the Delbarton kids were sooooo proud of the fact that they went to delbarton. One even made a comment to me about how i would doodle on my notebook while he was "respecting god" or something. yikes.

5) kids were asked to host gatherings a few times a year. The woman hinted that i should host one. i told her no. she then called my house to insist on us hosting it. i told my mom that i would quit if we were forced to host one. I think that was my final straw with the church.

that's really all i can remember. i don't remember even a single story about god or anything.

another dodgeball post?  

Posted

me: "wow, that guy looks like milton from office space". "wait, he also looks like the boss from news radio".

me: "uh, is milton from office space the same guy as the boss from news radio?"

me: "wow!"


ugh, pitt better start fouling here.

dodgeball vs. matrix II.  

Posted

When i saw matrix reloaded, i became instantly obsessed. That movie was so epically bad, and yet so loved by the fan boys. I would go to the imdb boards every night and read the flame wars.

There was one guy who actually went to film school and seemed to know what he was talking about. He pointed to 5 fatal flaws of the movie. I wish i had saved the post, b/c i bet a lot of stuff applies to movies i hate.

dodgeball definitely has one of those flaws. I forget the official name, but there's a technique in movies that should only be used sparingly. It's when the characters have to explain the plot through a monologue. It's the kiss of death. In the first matrix, the example was when Morpheus was tied up by the agents, and Agent Smith was giving a monologue about how the machines hate earth/humans. in that case, it was effective b/c there was still "stuff" going on. Neo and Trinity were breaking into the building and were in a fire fight with the guards. Then they were flying a helicopter and whatnot. This kept the pace up during the monologue.

In matrix II, there was a lot of standing around and just describing what was going on. That's lazy writing and was one of the many reasons the movie was terrible.

I just watched the beginning of Dodgeball b/c, while i hated the 2nd half of the movie, i felt like I owed it to my rage to watch the whole thing. And, I'm glad I did, b/c the ______ [whatever you call the technique] was pheonomally overdone. To explain the rules of dodgeball to the viewers of the movie, they actually showed an instructional video! I imagine the video was supposed to be funny (it wasn't, of course), but still. It was a 5 minute video that explained "the rules".

wow. just wow.

the most degrading nickname in the NBA  

Posted

used to be "the human victory cigar". now it's "postertag". i don't know how long that's been around, but it's AWESOME.


also, here's a tidbit

"South Park" co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians."

why can't announcers fully understand fights?  

Posted

duke bc. The pg (who threw that game against georgetown) dives for a loose ball, and throws it off of a BC player. As he's being helped up by JJ, he excitingly throws his hands out with a fist pump like motion. He's not even looking at the BC player when he does this.

The bc guy feels the "punch", and then starts a fight.


the announcers couldn't decide if he was punching the bc player on purpose, or if it was "good hustle play" tap of acknowledgment play.

uh, he's not even looking at the BC guy.

sheesh.

why can't announcers fully understand fights?  

Posted

duke bc. The pg (who threw that game against georgetown) dives for a loose ball, and throws it off of a BC player. As he's being helped up by JJ, he excitingly throws his hands out with a fist pump like motion. He's not even looking at the BC player when he does this.

The bc guy feels the "punch", and then starts a fight.


the announcers couldn't decide if he was punching the bc player on purpose, or if it was "good hustle play" tap of acknowledgment play.

uh, he's not even looking at the BC guy.

sheesh.

i invented this show, but better  

Posted

I had an idea for a documentary where a bunch of people were put in a plain room, and they had to decide who would get a million dollars. Everyone would have to agree, or nobody would get it. They'd be given food and other essentials, but nothing else. people would be allowed to quit, but only after paying a penalty.


that would have been awesome. "real world", but stripped down. As it stands, fox now has a show that's similar, but not as good. here's the article:



In a dramatic new television experiment, a diverse group of nine strangers are locked in a bunker, where they’ll remain until they decide who is worthy of a 1.5-million-dollar cash prize.

There is a catch, though, because the longer it takes to make a unanimous decision, the less money there will be to win. If they take too long, they will be left with nothing.

Upon entering their isolated living quarters, the nine contestants are cut off from the outside world, locked away, and presented the opportunity to win $1.5 million. The only thing standing between them and the money is a simple vote. If they are able to come to a unanimous decision about who should win the money, the game is over. If the outcome of the vote is not unanimous, the money clock is activated and the cash prize begins its countdown with potentially thousands of dollars lost every hour until the next voting period.

n every episode, each of the nine contestants, who include a minister, an atheist, a ladies’ man and a feminist, must convince the others to vote only for him or her. Before the vote, personal facts, secrets and lies are revealed, perhaps helping them decide who should receive the money. As the game progresses, contestants will be eliminated from winning the cash prize, but – in a television first – they will continue to live in the bunker and will continue to vote.

Will contestants’ greed for the money outweigh their desire to help someone potentially less fortunate than themselves? Who will lie and connive, and who will be truthful and sincere? No matter what, the final vote must be UNAN1MOUS.

Move over Donuts, I’ve now dreamt about pizza as well.  

Posted

It’s 3:40 AM, and I’m furiously typing in an attempt to write about this dream before I forget it. I’m not exactly sure why, as nobody reads this blog, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be that interested in this dream, but whatever. It’s rare that I dream, and even rarer that I remember it, so here we go.

I’m hanging around with my lawschool “friends” at some type of airport/mall combo. It’s post lawschool, and we’re all on to bigger and better things. I have friends in quotes because these aren’t exactly the group of people I’d consider my friends. More like the people I was forced to be friendly with to keep the status quo.

Anyway, the majority of them are off to do something, while I have to fly back to Newark to go to a wedding. While in Newark, I’m going to have to attend this lecture run by some company at Seton Hall. The person I’m walking through the mall/airport with is complaining about the lecture, saying that it’s not really a good use of our state funded resources. I start getting into a rant about that’s how our government works now. The companies get sweetheart deals to produce goods, and in return they get set up with these fat gigs at schools where they put on mediocre seminars. Everything is “efficiently” run, but there is no quality product. She agrees, and suggests that I expose it all in an article. I guess I’m a writer or something.

I apparently have a meal plan ala Rutgers, and awkwardly inquire to see if she’s eaten already. She has, so instead, I start stopping at each free food tray in the mall. Ever have free fruit at a buffet? It’s always defined by the fact that the cantaloupe and honeydew are always sliced in such a way as to still be able to puzzle back together the entire ball. As in, yes, it’s sliced per se, but it might as well just be whole b/c the slices aren’t spread out and thus stick together. This has always bothered me because it’s very hard to get the exact amount of fruit I desire without getting stuck with more pieces. I think it says something about my personality that I just skip trying to eat this food in public b/c of such concerns. But this time, I’m diving in with both hands to get all this fruit.

As we’re walking through this mall, I’m becoming more enraged by the governmental abuses. I’ve decided I’m going to push my boss to let me write this op. ed. Piece. Then, we finally get to my office, which is a pizza place inside the mall. Joe is there, and is apparently my coworker. He’s writing some fluff piece about something, and discourages me in terms of exposing the fraud at RU (maybe it wasn’t seton hall after all?). But my boss, the editor in the spider man movies (yes, Schillenger from OZ), pushes Joe aside and tells me to run with the story. I can’t figure out why he’s so excited, since our paper is school run, and thus will be cutting off the hand that feeds us. He doesn’t care though, and offers me all the free pizza I need to get the story done.

As I go to write the article, I pull up a stool next to the already cooked pizzas. They are all on display and under lights, like at a pizza place that has multiple varieties (wow, that shouldn’t be a word that I spell so poorly as to make “word” unable to find the correct spelling) of pies in the mall. But, all the pizza looks the same. They are the pies that RU used to have for takeout w/ your meal plan on Wednesday nights. It was a pretty sweet deal for people like me, who didn’t want to eat in the dining hall. I used to cut class (it was stats for pysch majors…a nice little loophole of a class where a stats minor like me could ace w/o ever having to attend) and get a pie to bring back to the dorm. Maybe that’s an indication on how successful I thought RU was run. I mean, the very fact that I could get into such a class and literally have a 100% average without EVER going should say something.

Anyway, the pizza was really good in the dream. It was a little overcooked, but in the good way. The crust was thin and crunchy, and the sauce was very tasty. The cheese didn’t melt into the pizza, but that was ok.


Obviously, 90% of this dream is based on the fact that Joe and I were talking about this fabulous looking pizza he’s had in New Haven Connecticut called “the white clam pie”. I’d link the pictures, but it’s 4 am, and I’m not looking for them. It looks really really good though. I don’t know about all the political aspects of this dream though. Or the fact that there were a lot of law school people in it that I wouldn’t exactly call my best friends.

Oh well, this was dream.

Ugh, blogspot seems down. So, I’m going back to bed and will post this tomm, but I swear, it’s 4 am right now.

test  

Posted

why can't i post? test.

Embarassingly, I never knew what Instant Runoff Voting was  

Posted

But, in my defense, "crashing the party" was a really boring book, and i never got to that chapter. If i had, however, I would have been a huge supportor of this process. Seriously, this could really solve a lot of problems regarding our democracy (other than the lack of an independent media, of course).

If there was IRV, it would be impossible for the big two (well, one, if you want to just call them corportists) to demonize third party candidates. Instead of being labeled as "spoilers", third party candidates could run and address real issues. More voters would come out b/c they'd actually have candidates who represent them. They could vote their conscience instead of voting for the lesser of two evils. If we had IRV, i wouldn't have had to vote for Kerry in 2004!

Of course, discussing this is pointless, b/c there's no way that the big two will ever allow IRV to happen. God forbid we have elections that are actually based on issues. Anyway, here is the article.

[btw, i really enjoyed the critics theory that IRV is bad b/c "people will just not come out and vote b/c it's too complicated". Yeah, b/c i really want an election decided by people who don't understand "vote for your top 5 candidates". yikes].

Instant-Runoff Voting is Gaining Momentum as Problem Solver
It eliminates need for runoff election, cuts 'spoiler' effect
by Ross Sneyd

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Runoff elections are traditionally cumbersome processes, taking weeks and sometimes months to determine a winner. On Tuesday, Burlington will do it all instantly.

The results for the first election and whatever runoffs are needed to settle a five-way race for mayor will be known soon after poll closing.

That's because voters, for the first time in a mayoral election in the United States, will vote Tuesday not only for their top choice, but also for their second, third and fourth choices through an innovation known as instant runoff voting.

Voters will be handed a ballot listing the five candidates, three of them representing major parties, with columns indicating first through fifth choices. If none of the five gets 50 percent of the vote on the first round, the candidate with the lowest vote total would be eliminated. The second choice of voters who made that candidate their initial top choice then would count.

"As soon as somebody gets to 50 percent, it stops," said Jo LaMarche, the city's election director.

Advocates have been promoting the idea of instant runoff voting, also known as ranked-choice voting, as a way of boosting voter turnout, encouraging more people to run for public office while eliminating the notion that a third-party candidate might be a spoiler.

"Nationally, people are catching on to how IRV can open up our politics," said Ryan O'Donnell, communications director of FairVote and the Center for Voting and Democracy. "It's a reform that produces majority winners, encourages candidates to reach out to more voters, and eliminates the 'spoiler' problem."

Burlington will not be the first community in the country to use a form of instant runoff. San Francisco has elected members of its board of supervisors using the system and the city of Ferndale, Mich., also is scheduled to use it. It will be the first to elect its chief executive officer with the system, though.

A number of other counties, cities, and towns also have shown interest, according to FairVote, including San Diego, Oakland, Davis and Berkeley in California. Bills are pending in at least 15 states to implement instant runoffs at local levels or statewide. The state of Washington last year gave a number of mid-sized cities authority to conduct instant runoff voting, although none has so far used it.

LaMarche said she's heard a lot of interest as well, fielding calls from South Carolina, Anchorage, Alaska, and communities in northern California. "A lot of people are just waiting to see how this works with Burlington," she said.

An academic who has studied voting systems said Burlington deserved the attention, despite its relatively small size. "I think it's significant because it's going to put Burlington on the cutting edge of this kind of election reform," said Doug Amy, professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and author of "Behind the Ballot Box: A Citizen's Guide to Voting Systems."

He said the outcome of the 2000 presidential election likely would have been different if Florida had used instant runoff voting. Amy predicted that votes that went to Ralph Nader ultimately probably would have gone to Al Gore if there had been an instant runoff, giving the former vice president victory in Florida and ultimately the presidency.

"I think that really brought that problem to national attention," he said. "It allows people to vote for any candidate they want and they don't have to worry about electing someone they least want."

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the reform, though. Some election administrators around the country worry that because the system is somewhat more complicated than traditional plurality voting, fewer people will show up at the polls. There's also concern that some ranked choices might not get counted in second and third rounds, a problem that initially bedeviled the system in San Francisco.

Doug Lewis, director of the Election Center, which represents elections administrators nationally, said those all are concerns he and his colleagues have heard about instant runoffs. But he can't say whether they're valid.

"Most of my folks don't have the time or inclination (to investigate) because we're so busy," he said. "Until you work with it enough and find out, it would be difficult to find out."

LaMarche believes Burlington voters will not see much unusual. The city is using the same optical scanning machines and ballots that it's used in the past. The only difference is that there are extra ovals after each mayoral candidate's name for second, third, fourth and fifth choices.

The city clerk's office conducted some voter training in January to try to get voters interested and educated. There also have been mailings to all voters with graphics and text explaining how the system works.

Candidates even have tried to take advantage of the new system. Progressive Party candidate Bob Kiss' signs promote him as the "first choice for mayor." Republican Kevin Curley has told his supporters that he endorses Kiss as a second choice. Democrat Hinda Miller has declined to endorse a second choice, arguing she's confident she'll win in the first round.

Embarassingly, I never exactly knew what Instant-Runnoff Voting was  

Posted

But, in my defense, "crashing the party" was a really boring book, and i never got to that chapter. If i had, however, I would have been a huge supportor of this process. Seriously, this could really solve a lot of problems regarding our democracy (other than the lack of an independent media, of course).

If there was IRV, it would be impossible for the big two (well, one, if you want to just call them corportists) to demonize third party candidates. Instead of being labeled as "spoilers", third party candidates could run and address real issues. More voters would come out b/c they'd actually have candidates who represent them. They could vote their conscience instead of voting for the lesser of two evils. If we had IRV, i wouldn't have had to vote for Kerry in 2004!

Of course, discussing this is pointless, b/c there's no way that the big two will ever allow IRV to happen. God forbid we have elections that are actually based on issues. Anyway, here is the article.

[btw, i really enjoyed the critics theory that IRV is bad b/c "people will just not come out and vote b/c it's too complicated". Yeah, b/c i really want an election decided by people who don't understand "vote for your top 5 candidates". yikes].

Instant-Runoff Voting is Gaining Momentum as Problem Solver
It eliminates need for runoff election, cuts 'spoiler' effect
by Ross Sneyd

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Runoff elections are traditionally cumbersome processes, taking weeks and sometimes months to determine a winner. On Tuesday, Burlington will do it all instantly.

The results for the first election and whatever runoffs are needed to settle a five-way race for mayor will be known soon after poll closing.

That's because voters, for the first time in a mayoral election in the United States, will vote Tuesday not only for their top choice, but also for their second, third and fourth choices through an innovation known as instant runoff voting.

Voters will be handed a ballot listing the five candidates, three of them representing major parties, with columns indicating first through fifth choices. If none of the five gets 50 percent of the vote on the first round, the candidate with the lowest vote total would be eliminated. The second choice of voters who made that candidate their initial top choice then would count.

"As soon as somebody gets to 50 percent, it stops," said Jo LaMarche, the city's election director.

Advocates have been promoting the idea of instant runoff voting, also known as ranked-choice voting, as a way of boosting voter turnout, encouraging more people to run for public office while eliminating the notion that a third-party candidate might be a spoiler.

"Nationally, people are catching on to how IRV can open up our politics," said Ryan O'Donnell, communications director of FairVote and the Center for Voting and Democracy. "It's a reform that produces majority winners, encourages candidates to reach out to more voters, and eliminates the 'spoiler' problem."

Burlington will not be the first community in the country to use a form of instant runoff. San Francisco has elected members of its board of supervisors using the system and the city of Ferndale, Mich., also is scheduled to use it. It will be the first to elect its chief executive officer with the system, though.

A number of other counties, cities, and towns also have shown interest, according to FairVote, including San Diego, Oakland, Davis and Berkeley in California. Bills are pending in at least 15 states to implement instant runoffs at local levels or statewide. The state of Washington last year gave a number of mid-sized cities authority to conduct instant runoff voting, although none has so far used it.

LaMarche said she's heard a lot of interest as well, fielding calls from South Carolina, Anchorage, Alaska, and communities in northern California. "A lot of people are just waiting to see how this works with Burlington," she said.

An academic who has studied voting systems said Burlington deserved the attention, despite its relatively small size. "I think it's significant because it's going to put Burlington on the cutting edge of this kind of election reform," said Doug Amy, professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and author of "Behind the Ballot Box: A Citizen's Guide to Voting Systems."

He said the outcome of the 2000 presidential election likely would have been different if Florida had used instant runoff voting. Amy predicted that votes that went to Ralph Nader ultimately probably would have gone to Al Gore if there had been an instant runoff, giving the former vice president victory in Florida and ultimately the presidency.

"I think that really brought that problem to national attention," he said. "It allows people to vote for any candidate they want and they don't have to worry about electing someone they least want."

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the reform, though. Some election administrators around the country worry that because the system is somewhat more complicated than traditional plurality voting, fewer people will show up at the polls. There's also concern that some ranked choices might not get counted in second and third rounds, a problem that initially bedeviled the system in San Francisco.

Doug Lewis, director of the Election Center, which represents elections administrators nationally, said those all are concerns he and his colleagues have heard about instant runoffs. But he can't say whether they're valid.

"Most of my folks don't have the time or inclination (to investigate) because we're so busy," he said. "Until you work with it enough and find out, it would be difficult to find out."

LaMarche believes Burlington voters will not see much unusual. The city is using the same optical scanning machines and ballots that it's used in the past. The only difference is that there are extra ovals after each mayoral candidate's name for second, third, fourth and fifth choices.

The city clerk's office conducted some voter training in January to try to get voters interested and educated. There also have been mailings to all voters with graphics and text explaining how the system works.

Candidates even have tried to take advantage of the new system. Progressive Party candidate Bob Kiss' signs promote him as the "first choice for mayor." Republican Kevin Curley has told his supporters that he endorses Kiss as a second choice. Democrat Hinda Miller has declined to endorse a second choice, arguing she's confident she'll win in the first round.