Space Program Marks 50th Anniversary

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first US space satellite Explorer 1. It transmitted data for a few months until its batteries died. Explorer 1 was the first of 83 Explorer missions, most of any spacecraft series.

Suspend Your Logic For A While

That seems to be what so many movies ask us to do. Visit the Movie Cliches List to see all the ways Hollywood uses improbable situations to move from one preposterous plot point to the next.

This Just Can't Be True

A man led police in Osaka, Japan on a two hour chase through the city. Here's the unbelievable part: the chase involved 2,240 police officers, 460 police cars, and one helicopter. And the chase ended only when the man crashed his car

Murphy's Laws Of Combat

This is good for a few laughs.

My favorite entry... "If the enemy is in range, so are you."
The one most universally true... "The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator."

No More Gas Caps?

I'm sure it earns me another 15 minutes in purgatory, but I can't help laughing at folks I see driving down the highway with their car's gas cap cover open. I've never understood how you someone can replace the gas cap, but not close the cover. Being easily distracted, I can understand forgetting both. But getting one and not the other?

Anyway, not sure how this will affect those forgetful folks, but I see where Ford is eliminating gas caps altogether. They're going to a NASCAR style filling system.

Say What?

The names of R&B music star Mary J. Blige, along with rap artists 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and award-winning author and producer Tyler Perry, have emerged in an ongoing investigation of steroids trafficking.

Athletes and steroids... absolutely. But singers? How's that work... stronger vocal chords?

Scariest Bike Path of Earth

There's no way I could bring myself to walk this, much less do it on a bike. These guys are absolute lunatics!

Stupid Quotes, Courtesy The Hildabeast

Hillary has been in Nevada, pandering to the Hispanic crowd and looking to wrangle up a few votes. Always the wordsmith, the power-obsessed smartest woman in the world came out with two fine gems...

In broken English, one woman told Clinton how she wasn't making money as a broker anymore.

"I have no income at all," she said. "So how will I survive?"

Choking up with emotion, the woman said, "In my neighborhood, there are brand-new homes, but the value is nothing. I'm glad you are here so I can tell you, because you're going to be the president, I know."

A man shouted through an opening in the wall that his wife was illegal.

"No woman is illegal," Clinton said, to cheers.

Alrighty then. Here's my personal favorite...

Clinton said unscrupulous lending leads to bad mortgages, which lead to foreclosures, which lead to people with nowhere to go and vacant neighborhoods that can go rapidly downhill.

"We treat these problems as if one is guacamole and one is chips, when ... they both go together," she said.

Can you imagine the response if a Republican had used that analogy.

Anyway, it makes me wonder how she will compare things when she gets to the South. Maybe:

"...one is chicken and one is dumplings".

"...one is Moon Pie and one is RC Cola"

"...one is Country and one is Western"

"...one is Camaro and one is blocks"

"...one is possum and one is stew"

Sad, Ridiculous Story

A Fairbanks, Alaska couple lost their home to fire a couple of days ago. Nothing new... until you see that the fire truck rolled up, firefighters took one look, and decided not to put the fire out. Apparently, the home was 180 feet outside the area that the Steese Area Volunteer Fire Department covers, effectively putting it on the wrong side of the road.

What kind of people would see a situation like this, have the ability to help out a family in need, yet turn their back a leave because it a wee bit outside their jurisdiction? If it had been the home of a relative or friend, don't you think they would have put water on the fire without a second thought?

Just a crying shame.

Headline Of The Week

Man stabs another man with pork chop bone - from Ardmore, Oklahoma

While We're Talking About College Football

Sports Illustrated has come out with their list of the greatest college football players of all time... by uniform number. Yep, the greatest players to ever wear each uniform number. Was there ever any real doubt about #34?

It Just Gets Worse

Another BCS game, another blowout. For a season that was excitingly unpredictable, the bowl season has been lackluster. The BCS bowls, which in theory should be the most exciting games of the bowl season, have certainly been the worst. Last night's West Virginia dismantling of Oklahoma followed the example set by Southern Cal and matched by Georgia. Total, utter devastation.

How did we get to the point where the most prolific and highly anticipated games of the post-season turn out to be such utter duds? Wasn't the BCS supposed to make things better? Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal writes...

The BCS doesn’t exist to produce great matchups or even a truly deserving national champ. It exists to give the impression that a deserving national champ will be crowned even though the overarching goal is to preserve the bowl system in all its moneyed bloat.

Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports.com was (sarcasm!) slightly less diplomatic in his online column yesterday...

If you haven't noticed, we're two-fifths of the way through the BCS matchups and the games stink. Georgia and USC have won by a combined 63 points against opponents who were -- how to say it delicately? -- sub-standard. Georgia and USC squaring off in Pasadena would have been better than the slop we were subjected to on Tuesday. But the Sugar Bowl never would have released the Bulldogs, so we were subjected to BCS jail.

The Sunday Morning Quarterback blog puts it this way...

A New Year's wish today for the Orange Bowl: a halfway watchable game. The BCS has brought us two straight nights and one much-anticipated afternoon of excruciating blowout football salvaged only by the very anathemic tears of Colt Brennan.

You know, and I know, that the BCS isn't going anywhere. A playoff (like Division I-AA, Div. II, Div. III, NCAA baseball, NCAA basketball, NCAA women's basketball, NCAA hockey) could never work, some idiots say. Other idiots say the BCS is really the best possible system.

Well, this idiot knows the BCS is screwed. This idiot knows the memory of the spectacular 2007 college football season is being tarnished by the lunacy that is the BCS. This idiot knows the system is broken, and I hear a lot of other people who agree.

New Year's Day used to be a magical day for college football fans. Now, the magic ends when the BCS games begin.

Just Wow

What else can you say about Georgia's absolutely dominating performance last night against Hawaii? Willie Martinez has turned this defense into something Erk Russell would be proud of. An unbelievable game, but...

This is why the BCS stinks so badly. Instead of having two powerhouse teams like UGA and USC match up, we get blow outs like this one and USC/Illinois. Great games for the winning teams, but awful games for the BCS. Hawaii certainly impressed us with their WAC championship season. But they had not faced the mighty strength and speed of the SEC. A much better pairing would have been Hawaii and Illinois.

And could the broadcast on FOX have been any worse? If the wife and I had a dollar for every commercial, our sumer vacation in 2008 could be Italy or Greece, rather than South Carolina or Florida. Way too many commercials. This what happens when the NCAA turns over control of the bowl games to TV networks.

Goal For 2008: Save More Money

The wife and I have been looking at ways to tighten our budget and save more money this year. Obviously the best resource for all things money-saving is ClarkHoward.com. But we've found a couple of web sites that specialize in more specific savings.

One of the easiest, and quickest, ways we've found to save is to use coupons when we grocery shop. We've saved as much as $25 in one shop just from the coupons we used. Now I know that clipping and organizing coupons is absolutely no fun. But (to us) saving money is a blast, especially when it's in the multi-digit dollars range. One of the best resources I've found for saving at the grocery store is CouponMom.com. Stephanie Nelson (aka The Coupon Mom) is an Atlanta wife and mother who created an absolutely free resource for grocery shopping and coupon use strategy. She did so to help others learn to save lots of money, but also to help feed the hungry by increasing food donations to hunger organizations with the Cut Out Hunger program.

Another food-related way we've found to save money is with Restaurant.com, a web site offering sizable discounts at more than 8,500 restaurants nationwide and to various online retailers. It works like this...

You search for restaurants in your area that are part of the program. A quick search around Atlanta showed more than 400 restaurants participating. You buy gift certificates for those restaurants at deep discounts. A $25 gift certificate will run you $10. A $10 certificate is only $3. As you can see, the savings are very nice. Through CouponMom.com, you can save even more. Buy a $25 gift certificate for only $6. That's an instant $19 savings off your meal. As 2007 cam to an end, Restaurant.com offered a special discount code that gave 70% off their certificates. With that code, you could buy a $25 gift certificate for only $3.

One thing to know, though... there are a limited number of certificates available, and they are restocked on the first of the month. Sometimes, the supply of certificates for some restaurants will run our before the month is over. So it's always a good idea to check it our early in the month. Today would be a good time!