Pandora and Swine Flu

I was to quick to say nice things about the Pandora blackberry app. It crashed with an unhandled exception on my way to work. It was not too bad though, a soft boot of the phone fixed it. Kind of a challenge to reboot and unlock while riding a bicycle in traffic, but I gotta have my music. The regular media player on the Blackberry Storm crashes pretty regularly too. So I still give a thumbs up to the Pandora application.

Up next Swine Flu, I am not impressed. As of April 26th there were less than 100 cases, how is this an emergency? Even the New York Times says the cases have been mild. Were are the really ambitious diseases like the black plague any more? That wiped out 30%-60% of the population of Europe, now that is impressive. The Swine Flu is cured by Nyquil, so what the hell is the panic about. I say it is just the media trying to distract us from the fact that the economy sucks. The best thing Swine Flu has done is inspire this song.

Pandora on the Blackberry

I love Pandora. I usually listen to it when working at home and have dozens of stations to fit my mood. They recently released a client for the Blackberry and I downloaded it immediately for my Storm. It is a little weird as it tends to keep playing behind everything else you do. Which in a way is cool, but can be kind of annoying as you have to remember to turn it off instead of just hitting the red button. On the other hand I am normally listening on my way to or from work, so it does not really matter that much. It does not seem to consume much more battery than a phone call and the quality is good at least in my area. So if you have a Blackberry I suggest you at least download it and try it. They also have a client for several other phones if you are not part of the blackberry cult.

Earth day

The day the earth gets vengeance for our stealing her precious resources! Unfortunately no, it is just a day to be a little more conscious of our impact and try to be a little more green. So be nice to the environment today, or it will have its vengeance upon you! For ideas check out the Earth Day Network and the Nature Conservancy.

And it my quest to find something on earth week I found an interesting site dedicated to the major ecological events of the last week. It documents earth's struggle to defeat the vermin that crawl upon it and other ecological events. Earthquakes, volcanoes and cyclones, oh my.

Perfect woman for me

I really have found the perfect woman for me in Liz. It is hard to find someone who is loyal, sweet, loving, supportive and heartless. We were out Friday night at a Shmimprov show and someone was ranting on the train platform next to the theater when we went in. Apparently they, or someone else, decided to jump in front of a freight train. At the time everyone else was all sad, but Liz and I both just thought it was terribly inconsiderate to inconvenience so many other people when you kill yourself. We both pretty much agreed that you are an idiot to get hit by a train, read her opinion for yourself.

Oh and she cooks too.

You got your zombie in my fertility festival

If you are easily offended just scroll down to comment and leave a message about how I am going to hell. It will save you time and your life will be a little brighter for not having read this. Oh and what are you doing reading my blog anyway?

For those of you still with me. Today celebrates zombie Jesus and fertility. Kind of an odd combination, but really amusing when you think about it. If nothing else it lead me to a fun christian site declaring Easter the work of Satan, then again so is Christmas, so I am not going to worry to much about it. The pagans already had all the good holidays by the time the christians showed up, so you can't really blame the christians for hijacking them.

Anyway back to zombie Jesus, having the extremely vivid imagination I do, I picture zombie Jesus leading an army of egg laying bunnies to destroy humanity. Not exactly the zombie apocalypses I normally picture, but you need to be prepared for any contingency. My neighborhood has a lot of bunnies, so the bunny zombie apocalypse is going to get ugly, but that is what the shotgun is for. Unfortunately I was kind of counting on them as food, but I am not eating zombie bunny.

Here is one to really horrify everyone. So what is the proper way to celebrate fertility? Humping of course. The other thing being celebrated is a zombie and zombies are dead. So combine the two and what do you get? That's right. You know what it is I will not type it here. And for you real sickos you can add in animals. I will just let you ponder that thoughts on this lovely holiday.

On a more non-offensive note it leads to chocolate bunnies and the most delicious substance on earth, Reese's peanut butter eggs. After long discussion I have come to the conclusion the peanut butter eggs are better than the cups do to the higher peanut butter to chocolate ratio. I am having Liz raid the grocery stores tomorrow for half price peanut butter eggs.

So happy "Resurrection Sunday" to the fundamentalist christians, happy Easter to the moderate cristians and pagans (apparently Easter is one of the pagan names for the mother goddess), and happy zombie Jesus day to all the lolzians out there. I am listing lolzian as my religion next time it asks on a form. So enjoy your rituals, female oppression, cannibalism and fertility, but if you come after my flesh or brains you are getting some lead.

Educational Internet Videos

While the internet is great for meaningless entertainment there really is some great stuff on it. My friend Dean sent me a link to Academic Earth, which is a very cool site that has videos of lecture's from some of the top U.S. universities. They have a relatively limited selection at the moment, but some really interesting ones. I am currently watching the philosophy series on death. I also started listening to one on the old testament on the train home yesterday. Both are fascinating. They also have lectures on just about every other topic available, science, history, politics, law, medicine, business, etc. The philosophy and religion ones lend themselves to being listened to at work as I don't need to actually watch the video. I think that would be more difficult with the science and math ones. I hope they keep adding courses. Its the best part of college without all the homework.

There are some also some very interesting videos on the economy out there. Money as Debt is one of my favorites. It really explains why our economy is doomed and we can not borrow our way out of debt. Although, that should be obvious to anyone with the ability to reason, most people have never been told how the system really works, so its understandable that people do not see it.

Another friend, David, joined the Zeitgeist group on facebook which reminded me of that movie. You can find the movie on the Zeitgeist movie site. I do not agree with all of its conclusions, especially in the addendum, but I think it is very interesting and makes you think.

So next time you have an hour to kill, instead of watching people getting hit in the nuts on youtube, watch something educational and entertaining. Save the nut shots for when you only have a few minutes.