Category Archives: Uncategorized

Cub Scout sells 10 tons of popcorn.

This feel-good story got me wondering:  Say you have one pound of unpopped popcorn kernals and then pop them all.  Would the popped popcorn also equal one pound?
My brain tells me that the popped popcorn would weigh slightly less (due to the evaporation of the water contained in each kernal).
Does anyone know?  Where would one find the answer?

Technorati Tags: popcorn, science, scouts

Just to let you know, there are so far, over a dozen who have submitted their Oscar Picks to The Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool.  If you’re wondering if I received yours, I likely did.

If you want to join in, click on the link above, fill in your guesses and click the submit button.
Apart from the prestige of being the best guesser amongst the competitors, the winner may actually receive a prize.  Probably a mix cd of tunes that I hope you would like.  Maybe a couple of items of nostalgic Annekenstein paraphernalia.  In the event of a tie, the winner will be the tied-person who was first to send in their picks.

Curious George meets the man in the white lab coat.
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Curious George meets the man in the white lab coat.
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Annekenstein – Audience (5)
Originally uploaded by annekenstein1.

When we did our first year of Annekenstein, in 1990, one of the sketches involved DaveM, as an ignorant American Tourist, who was to take a picture of his wife on vacation. Part of the joke was that he accidentally sets the camera off, wasting film, to his wife’s dismay. We thought it would be cool if Dave actually did take pictures, and this is one of the shots he took.
This is one of the first audiences to see the first season of Annekenstein. Not a very big crowd. I particularly like the hard-laughers in the midst of the audience. They’re honestly enjoying something.

Further to the notion of Charlottetown getting a usable public transit system, I was thinking about what type of service I could live with.
Here are some thoughts:
-I live in Winsloe.  It currently takes me 15-20 minutes to drive (to the downtown waterfront) to work in the morning.  I leave my home at 8:40 to get to work for 9.  I would be willing to catch a bus at 8am and be content with whatever time I actually got to work (as long as it was before 9).  If the schedule forced me to take anything earlier than an 8am pickup and I would say the schedule is not going to work.
-If I missed the 8am (or whatever time it ended up being) pickup in Winsloe, I would expect the next bus to arrive at my stop within a half hour.  I wouldn’t expect the ‘every half hour’ schedule to continue in Winsloe throughout the day.  I would expect, after morning rush, that a ‘once an hour’ schedule would suffice throughout the day, until evening rush.
-I finish work, on the waterfront in downtown Charlottetown at 5pm.  I would expect "the Winsloe Bus" to be at my downtown pickup spot by no later than 5:20.  I would hope to be home by 6pm, but would accept 6:15, probably.

Basically, I’m thinking I’m willing to add an extra 45 minutes each way to my commute.

What about evenings and weekends?
I would expect that public transportation to/from my Winsloe stop would be much more infrequent on  weekends and evenings.  What would I expect?  Perhaps every 2 hours, with the final ‘downtown to Winsloe’ pickup around 11pm, home before midnight?

I would be willing to pay $2 per one-way trip.  I would expect there to be a discount for pre-purchasing X number of trips.

What would you be willing to accept?

Singing in the Rain meets Hip Hop meets computer wizardry.
Check out this quicktime video.  The coolest thing I’ve seen so far today.
I must say, I was disappointed at the end when I discovered it was an automobile advertisement.

video

On the off-chance that someone who reads this might be suited for and enjoy this job, here’s some info on a new position opening up at Magic 93, 630 CFCY & 720 CHTN radio in Charlottetown.

Promotions Director
It’s a full time, year round entry level position.
Articulate, energetic, enthusiastic, creative, outgoing, and ambitious with a positive attitude.  Loves people and the limelight.  Thinks driving the van in a parade or emceeing a talent show would be a blast and can “go professional” and help an organization develop a promotion to meet their marketing needs.
The successful candidate will possess above average time management, customer service, organizational, communications and writing skills.  A university degree or college diploma in marketing would be a definite asset.

Duties to include:

Promotion co-ordination and support:  including logistics and POS design and layout
      (posters, ballots, display)

Research and develop successful promotions and events

Liaison between sales and other departments in regards to sales and promotional activity

Supervise summer community cruiser/ambassador program

Attend events and file on air reports

Attend occasional client meetings to assist in promotion preparation

Position requires proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Power Point, Corel Draw, Microsoft Publisher.

Resumes should be submitted by January 31st to:

Heather Tedford

General Sales Manager

CFCY, CHTN, Magic 93

5 Prince Street

Charlottetown, PEI

C1A 4P4

Or emailed to:  tedford@islandtelecom.com

We’ve been living in our home for almost 15 years, and in all that time, I’ve never been up into our attic/crawlspace.  I’ve peeked a few times, but I’ve not gone up into that space.

Until yesterday.  And boy am I glad I did.

When I got up there, I saw an old crate.  Old old.  Curious, I opened it and I’m amazed at what I saw.  Notes, written on what I’m guessing is papyrus, now barely legible.  They are written in a language that looks unfamiliar to me.

They are written by God. Yeah huh.

After a sleepless night of entering the strange characters into the online babelfish translator, I’ve finally finished the transcription.  The notes appear to be God’s notations on how to improve the piece he was working on at the time:  Human Being.  Apparently, the Human Beings we are today are only an early beta version, and it seems like God had bigger and better plans for us.  Yet, for whatever reasons, these suggested improvements never were implemented.

Still, I thought some of you might be interested at what God had in mind to improve Human Being from beta to Final Version.  I won’t bother with all of them, because frankly, many of the notes are merely chemical equations or too far advanced for human comprehension.

Here, then, are some of the more interesting of God’s notes:

Arms – make them retractable?  Would be good for sleeping, as I notice that the arms can sometimes get in the way of sleep-comfort. How would that affect the ability to keep string-strap camisoles up though? Make shoulders more pointy?  Acceptable retraction speed?  0.1 seconds should be fast enough. Need to be that fast so when HB falls out of bed, arms will spring back out quick enough to cushion fall.

Fingers – Five too many?  Thumb definitely stays, but how about just three fingers, for a total of four?  I can’t envision any need for the pinky, other than the pinky ring and maybe for drinking elegantly from tea cups.  But, with just four, the current ring finger becomes the pinky ring finger.  But only four fingers would make My soon to be patented Penticimal Mathematics System ™ more difficult to figure out.  Hmm?

Head – Pretty good as is.  Thinking about adding third eye, on the back of head, to see behind oneself.  How would that affect hairdos though?  Put third eye on back of neck?  Would that eliminate collared shirts?  Would that be so bad? 
Nose- for maximum smell-efficiency, need to extrude from face as is currently, however it really ruins, in My opinion, the smooth lines of a profile.  Maybe I should just go with my original plan and put the nose down by the feet.  Then one’s nose would really smell.  LOL.  Trouble is, if one’s nose is down by one’s feet, the nose would likely run more.  LOL.
Mouth- good shape, good size.  If total-liquid-waste idea (see below) goes into effect, might only need to be the size of a straw-hole opening.  Curious that it takes so many more muscles to smile than to frown. 
Ears- Two is good for hearing left or right, but what about hearing in front or behind oneself?  I think there should be four or even 5.1 for a total surround sound system.   Should I give HB the ability to hear like dogs?  If so, then what would HB have to be jealous of regarding dogs?  Genital licking?  Why not just make HB able to lick own genitals?  I don’t believe the old wives’ tale that if so, HB would never leave home.  Why not just put an extra tongue down there, anyway?  You know, just for because.  Would cost be that much more prohibitive?

Waste – Not at all happy with current system.  Waste is an unfortunate, necessary byproduct of HB (the old adage does apply: If sustenance goes in, it’s gotta come out somehow).  Ideally, all waste should be able to be broken down into liquid-form and easily discharged as pee (still not sure whether both male and female should get their own penis. Female HB urination can currently get messy.  Especially when camping).  Forget all that inner-workings of anus stuff.  Far too messy.  (however, might be worthwhile to keep anus around, as the whole back-package is rather pleasing, aesthetically.  Wonder, though, is anus too close to the impregnate-hole?  Might be a cause of reproduction-confusion, in the dark.  Probably nothing to concern Myself with.  Can’t imagine it being an issue.)

Genitalia – Make the penis, generally, bigger, longer, wider.  Especially if all waste ends up coming out there.  Reproduction process looks pleasant enough, but will it end up being too much work?  Be a shame for HB to extinct itself due to laziness.  Alternative reproduction methods?  Orally? Everyone’s got a mouth, right.  Maybe I should just drop the whole Male Impregnates Female system and go with something more simple.  What if semen is found naturally, in food?  Ugh.  Maybe I should put more thought into the Stork System of Child Delivery.  For now, it’ll remain as is:  penis into anus vagina.  (that’s it, I’m moving the anus farther away.  But where?  Back of knee? Armpit?  Where the bellybutton currently is seems like a logical place, why haven’t I thought of that before?  Shitting out of the stomach seems like the perfect solution, but what trouble-points am I missing? What’s the purpose of the bellybutton anyway?… man, there’s a lot of work still to be done before this goes Final Version)