Category Archives: the usual drivel

I don’t know where else to put this stuff

SOLVED: What does this sign mean?

Posted on by
1

[Death Letter?]
These signs are posted all over campus, usually near some vegetation. Does that mean that mailing these plants is punishable by death? Is it a warning that anthrax may be in your mail? Is there some poison on these plants that I can learn about by mail? Personally, I think it’s an advertisement for the White Stripes song “Death Letter.”

Update:
Apparently Stache, PBR, and Guy were all holding out on me, because they discovered the meaning of this sign but chose not to tell me. It turns out that a Berkeley hippie was conducting a bit of a sociological experiment. He set up a table on campus and provided envelopes with skulls to willing participants. The volunteer would write down the name of the desired recipient of the envelope with a minimal amount of information and leave it somewhere outside on campus. The hippie believed that the envelope would eventually find its intented target by the generous efforts of the public. For example, Stache wrote a note to me, put it in one of these envelopes and labeled it “Jere Dandy, College of Chemistry, Latimer Hall,” and left it somewhere on campus. If the theory proved true, someone would have picked it up, brought it to the chemistry department, and they would have figured out who it belonged to and delivered it.

Stache thought he could cleverly reveal the meaning of the sign by including that information in the very note which was part of the experiment. However, apparently it failed in this case, so he broke down and told me the story yesterday.

So that’s the story of the “death letters,” but I don’t really understand why this guy needed these crazy signs or how he would even get the results of his study. Just file that under “Only in Berkeley.”

Is it illegal to refill Heinz bottles with a cheaper ketchup?

Posted on by
1

The 610 Latimer crew has a regular trip to Sumo Burger each week. We are generally quite happy with their set-up over there, although we’ve had some complaints. Stache received a chicken cheesesteak once instead of a regular cheesesteak, and another time they forgot PBR’s order altogether. The plasma screen television is gone, the quality of music fluctuates wildly, and the shakes invariably are ready well after the food. However, we continue to patronize Sumo because they make a great burger at a reasonable price and have a frequent customer plan. It certainly should have been mentioned in the Daily Cal’s review of the local burger establishments.

Recently though, Sumo has been deemed guilty of a serious crime. I first noticed the problem two weeks ago. The fries seemed to taste a bit funny. I inquired with my compatriots, and they noticed no problem. I tried a fry without ketchup, and it tasted fine. Upon restoration of the condiment, I realized it was not the french fry that was substandard; it was the ketchup! The bottle said Heinz, but I was skeptical. The next time we dined at Sumo, I picked up some Heinz packets on the way to the restaurant, and we did something of a taste test. The group unanimously decided that the ketchup in the bottle was certainly not Heinz. In our most recent trip, we noticed that behind the counter was a large can of Cheng’s ketchup with a pump attached for refilling the Heinz labelled bottles.

If I recall correctly from a conversation with two unabashed Heinz supporters, this activity is illegal. Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything on the internet to corroborate their opinion, in the U.S. at least. There is a report from London of a cafe getting busted for refilling Heinz bottles with cheaper alternatives. I’ve contacted legal representation and will post my findings in due course.

UPDATE:
Odie and JBarbs have confirmed that this practice is indeed illegal. They are preparing documentation that we will present to the management of Sumo Burger the next time we enter the establishment.

I’m not even Tony Hawk in my dreams

Posted on by
1

If I have dreams, I don’t usually remember them. However, there have been a couple lately that stuck around in my memory. First, I was skateboarding all over campus. I thought I was doing fairly well (I didn’t hit anyone at least), but Odie told me I was the worst skater he had ever seen. The other dream I remember is that I was going to eat a donut, but then decided to split it with someone, so I cut in half with a knife.

What’s weird about these dreams is that I haven’t skated since I was five and I don’t like donuts. What does that mean?

World of Wombat

Posted on by
3

Ever wonder who else is reading this site? Yeah, I thought it was just my 6 friends too (now including Melissa!), but from StatCounter, I’ve learned that people from all over the world are stumbling upon the site. The number of countries surfing in is really amazing, so I’m going to update the list as new countries make diplomatic contact.

Added 10/6/05:
Croatia
Turkey

Added 9/20/05:

Bahrain
Peru

Continue reading →

Is this supposed to convince me to listen?

Posted on by
Reply

[Lamont and Tonelli]107.7 The Bone is the classic rock station in San Francisco. It has certain positive attributes, e.g they only play a particular song once per day and generally have a good playlist. However, they ruin it by playing stuff like Hoobastank. The Bone’s morning show is Lamont and Tonelli. In addition to incessant promos throughout the day on the radio, the station places these ads on public transit to advertise. Look, there’s a reason these guys are on radio and not TV.

I’m not a magician. I’m not Paco either.

Posted on by
Reply

Back when I had a phone in my room at home, I used to get strange messages on my answering machine. People started asking for Mr. Zupp, or Shawn Zupp. Then I got quite a few messages inquiring about the availability of Shawn the Magician. One woman even gave a whole list of dates and how much money she was willing to spend. I considered taking her up on the offer. Anyway, it was always an exciting event when that little red light was flashing.

I hadn’t thought about Shawn the Magician for a while, but I had three messages on my voice mail for Paco to call them.

I just thought you should know.

Cooking Shows

Posted on by
3

Melissa loves cooking shows, which means she loves Food Network. These shows can be interesting, and you learn a fair amount, but one thing drives me crazy. I hate when they’re preparing a dish, then say you have to wait for 45 minutes, but magically pull a plate out of the fridge or oven, and it’s ready for the next step. There is one shining example of a cooking program devoid of this insidious behavior: 30 Minute Meals. It’s taped in real time, so you get the full start to finish on the meal. I have noticed that the host, Rachael Ray, is pretty much running all over the set, and obviously she’s pretty experienced, so it might be more like a 60 minute meal for a normal person. But this is still my favorite because there’s none of that “Here’s a plate of veal saffron that I prepared earlier. Doesn’t it look delicious?!” stuff.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: Could I choose none of the above?

Posted on by
3

I think as a scientist, I have taken evolution for granted. Yes, we share ~99% of our genetic code with monkeys. Yes, we have remains of Homo erectus and neanderthals and whatnot. But I’m starting to think that maybe we’re not really evolving.

What’s made me think this way?

Has anyone seen that there’s a new version of The Apprentice coming out on NBC this fall? They made a sequel to The Transporter? The A’s used Juan Cruz in a tie game in the tenth inning at Boston? These are not signs of evolution. But are they signs of intelligent design?

Certainly not . . . unless you consider the designer not to be a benevolent one, but one hell bent on having a good laugh about it. I think what happened was God created a perfect race of beings. One that treated each other with respect, treated their planet as an irreplaceable gift, understood what was really entertaining, and how to handle a bullpen. That race is not ours. They’re having a grand ol’ time somewhere else in the universe, and God is awfully proud of itself. We’re the jesters. Throwing explosive things at each other, procrastinating in the face of natural disasters, continually putting out derivative junk into the media, and torturing baseball fans all over with questionable managerial moves. Not an intelligent design, but maybe a hillarious one. For an omnipotent deity at least.

Chocolate Milkshakes: How to/ not to make one

Posted on by
3

There’s a right way, and there’s a wrong way to make a chocolate milkshake.

Method A:
Place chocolate ice cream and milk into a blender. Mix until desired consitency. Serve.

Method B:
Place vanilla ice cream into blender. Add chocolate syrup and milk. Mix until desired consistency. Serve.

What’s the difference you ask? Well, ‘A’ is a milkshake. Ice cream of the appropriate flavor blended with milk. On the other hand, ‘B’ is a cold chocolate-milk. What’s the point of the ice cream? If you want chocolate milk, just drink that. For me, the point of the milkshake is to consume ice cream by drinking it.

There seems to be a regional variation at work. On the east coast, I’ve usually received chocolate shakes of method ‘A,’ while other places (the midwest especially) use method ‘B.’ This phenomenon is also observed when ordering Dairy Queen blizzards. At the DQ’s in Wyckoff and Emerson, NJ, if you ask for a chocolate blizzard, you get chocolate ice cream with your desired topping. Elsewhere, they look at you a little funny, then make a vanilla blizzard and add syrup. I don’t understand this. The soft chocolate ice cream is right there, yet they do not use it.

Of course, other forces could be at work. This could be a conspiracy perpetrated on the unsuspecting public by the insidious chocolate syrup industry. It pains me to say anyone associated with chocolate is ‘insidious,’ but it’s possible.