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A Few Words From Your Sponsor
Hi! I'm David. And I'm incredible. A while back, during a compliment-gone-hilarious someone once told me that I was THE Incredible D-A-V. My guess is that Dave was the intended destination for that little name-game, but as I never liked the name Dave, Dav stuck.
I'll write about all sorts of stuff in this blog, probably only 1/3 of it will be of any interest at any given time. Keep coming back...we'll see what we can find out about each other.
Apr
26
Wet hen.
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I had to come to my office today to finish some work (goodbye Phantasmagoria) and right as I got here it started POURING.
This is not the Saturday I had in mind. Boo rain.
Apr
22
I like Textism. You may too.
Apr
21
A bitter pill.
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My trusty portable hard drive, that has outlived 2 other computers is failing. It’s making the click-of-doom sound and I’m trying frantically to get it backed up onto my swanky 500 GB Time Capsule, but because it’s failing so fast I’m having to do a manual (read: file-by-file) copy to the new drive. Every. Single. File.
160 Gigabytes worth of information dating back to college projects from 2002.
This is what those of us in the technology field call “a dose of our own medicine”.
Backup your backups everybody!
Apr
17
Paradise by the GoPhone Light.
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This commercial makes me laugh every time I see it.
Apr
11
“Starving Dog” is not art.
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In 2007 a Costa Rican artist named Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, as an installation piece, took a dog from the street, tied it to a short rope across a gallery from a bowl of food and allowed it to starve to death while the general public looked on.
As a reward for his act of sadism, he was issued a spot in the prestigious Central American Biennial Exhibition 2008 in Honduras.
In the words of the artist (translated courtesy of the interwebs):
I knew the dog died on the following day from lack of food. During the inauguration, I knew that the dog was persecuted in the evening between the houses of aluminum and cardboard in a district of Managua. 5 children who helped to capture the dog received 10 bonds of córdobas for their assistance. During the exhibition some people requested the freedom of the small dog, which the artist refused. The name of the dog was Natividad, and I let him die of hunger in the sight of everyone, as if the death of a poor dog was a shameless media show in which nobody does anything but to applaud or to watch disturbed. In the place that the dog was exposed remain a metal cable and a cord. The dog was extremely ill and did not want to eat, so in natural surroundings it would have died anyway; thus they are all poor dogs: sooner or later they die or are killed.
I believe that freedom of speech, especially in the cultural world, is invaluable to a modern society. But I also strongly believe that using an unknowing, unwilling and defenseless model in the work was cruel and can’t be allowed. A petition that says the same is here: http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html.
After you finish reading this, go and play with your pet. Winston and I are about to go on an extra-long adventure.
Apr
10
8th Grade Exam.
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I’ve heard many senior citizens claim to only have an 8th grade education, and wondered how they managed to get along without more schoolin’. The following is an 8th grade final exam from Salina, Kansas in 1895. I have a college degree and could barely get through the thing…
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of ‘lie’, ‘play’, and ‘run’
5. Define case; illustrate each case
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammarArithmetic (Time, 65 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide - how many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000 - what is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per meter?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a ReceiptU.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, and syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How are they classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocal, diphthong, cognate letters, and lingual
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi-, dis-, mis-, pre-, semi-, post-, non-, inter-, mono-, and sup-
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabicationGeography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers
10. Describe the movements of the Earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
Apr
10
Knock Knock.
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Valdimir Lenin’s favorite joke:
Lenin: Knock knock.
Amused comrade: Who’s there?
Lenin: I’ll ask the questions.
(I think it’s funnier with the proper delivery. Or maybe it isn’t…either way, it made me laugh)
Apr
6
Moses.
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Charlton Heston dies at age 84.
I guess now we can pry that gun from his cold, dead hands.
(Back up snarky comment for the death of a fine actor, but a crazed and insensitive gun fanatic: Charlton Heston is Soylent Green. Yum.)