Borderline Fantastic

If you went to a large university or big corporation you have likely often been in the situation where someone asks you if you know someone that goes to school there or works there. 99% of the time the answer is no. That 1% is fascinating but because of the 99% the question itself just invokes and negative response.

The questions often start out the same, ‘You probably don’t know him but …’ The relation is often some sort of odd chain of connections that enable this person to attempt to relate to you, ‘My neighbor’s cousin’s nephew goes to Penn State, do you know him?’ ‘Nope sorry. Do you?’

There is the odd chance where the person is completely serious in their question. This happens often with my job because they don’t realize that thousands of people in the area work for the same company. Still, it’s either time to learn that fact or realize that they are a moron. When it comes to Penn State, you have no excuse, especially in Pennsylvania.

One of my favorite responses came on a plane on my way to my first spring break. There were quite a number of spring breakers on the flight. A few rows away someone asked the guys near her where they went to school. ‘Oh! I know someone that goes there, do you know so and so?’ One of the guys replied with a shocked and confused tone, ‘No. That’s weird because I know all 40,000 people there.’

The question is asked so often that it’s the perfect situation to try out all sorts of responses. The person asking usually knows you’ve heard it a lot. Even if you wind up offending them in some way you can easily explain the situation. Explain that so many people go to your school or work at your company that you’ve made a game of it after being asked so many times.

I thought of a few possible responses …
Put the person in a bad light, yourself too if needed (sacrifice yourself for the good of the bit) – ‘Oh yea, he’s my dealer.’ ‘That kid always has the best weed.’ ‘We went streaking one time, but we didn’t hang out much after that.’

Have the person confused with someone else – ‘Did he have a peg leg?’ ‘Mohawk?’ ‘I think I know who you’re talking about. Doesn’t he go by Michelle now?’

Admit you didn’t know anyone - ‘I didn’t have any friends.’ Then act broken up about it.

Tell them you went to the other Penn State (substitute your institution of choice here) - ‘Oh no, I went to the the other Penn State, its a small Christian college in Mississippi.’ Don’t worry that the school name doesn’t fit. For bonus points act as though you’ve never heard of this gigantic school that goes by the same name as the tiny college you are pretending to be attending.

Say a similar name but turn the question around – ‘Do you know Mike Janke?’ ‘No, but I know a Phil Jenkins. Do you know him?’ Then start talking about what a great guy he is. I like this one because I’d have to work to come up with something good. On occasion I’d probably come up with a name that I loved and wouldn’t be able to get it out without cracking up. Every once in a while I’d throw out a random name that is not at all similar to the name asked. If I were in a particularly evil mood I might switch sexes up on them.

Wear gear from other large schools - This lets you join in the fun if you did go to that small Christian college. I have some Florida Gators gear. If I wore it more often I’m sure I’d get asked about it. A few times I’ve had passers by yell ‘Go Gators!’ Which is similar to someone yelling ‘We Are!’ to a Penn Stater.

Promo for The Cleveland Show - At first I thought this was a dumb idea but after the promo and getting back into American Dad I am now on board.

Be a star in our reasonably priced car - Try out the Top Gear track.

Wii Fit damage. I knew this was coming as soon as I set mine up. You need a bit of room to be moving about. I especially see issues at first for the unbalanced gamers.

WGN did a turn back the clock game. They covered the game as if it were 1948.

Uni Watch took over uniform duties for the Camden River Sharks. I wish I would have remembered, I would have gone.

Jim Caple on Page 2 ranks the best single sports years for a city. The winner? Philly in 1980-81. That’s right, I just missed the best sports year for any city ever.

Bob Uecker’s Yacht Wrecked By Freighter - A rule I have is anything I find mildly interesting that involves Bob Uecker, I share.

Fahrenheit - The new coaster at Hershey Park drops at 97 degrees. I haven’t been to Hershey in a few years, I think its time to go back.

If you’re dog and Roomba don’t get along, yell at your robot.

Top Five Roadkill Sites in North America - Actually the list is for top sites where turtles are run over. I was surprised that roadkill was tracked. I’m even more surprised they keep track by animal. The #1 site wins with a score of 2070 turtles killed per mile. That seems like a lot.

Gizmodo loves their LEGO posts. Apparently there was some sort of convention.
LEGO Death Star video
Pictures of the LEGO Death Star
LEGO Business ‘Card’
LEGO Airbus A380

I could post from Colbert everyday. Here he reports about fruit passing cookies as the most popular snack for children under 6. Logically he blames Cookie Monster, now that he is advocating healthy food and cookies as only a sometimes food.

Most kids’ toys today seem like safety was a major aspect of design and effectively took a lot of fun out of the toy. Growing up safety was considered, but it was the last thing before they sent it out the door. This is why I was so happy to see in this week’s Target ad your very own Skim Board set. Its called the Banzai Surfer Skimmer Board. It gives you an inflatable slide and I guess multiple skim boards of different colors.

At the beach I always saw kids with their skim boards. One of my cousins must have had one at some point or we at least borrowed one. I tried once but didn’t really get the hang of it. What happens often, even for the kids that know what they are doing, is a wipeout right into the sand. This is what concerns me with this set. When you wipeout, you aren’t landing on sand. Most likely this will be setup in the grass, which isn’t quite as forgiving. I’m fairly confident someone has set this up on the sidewalk. Leading to all sorts of fun times.

While searching I found this instructional video that I assume is included with the set. It shows you how to set it up, use it, and shows some tricks from professional surfers that you instructed not to try at home. I don’t want to ruin the video for you but the use it section goes as follows: ‘run, drop, and skim.’ That was the entire use it section before the tricks started. Take a look …

Target’s page for this item also mentions that it only supports up to 100lbs. I saw boo to that. However, from the instructional video, I’m pretty sure those ‘professional athletes’ weigh more than 110lbs. I think the issue is popping the slide. If they didn’t modify the one for the video, it looks safe for adults.

Game 5 of the NBA Finals is about to start. I’ve watched a grand total of 10 or 15 minutes through the first 4 games. I wanted to get into it this year, I really did. Forget that its the Celtics and Lakers, just that it was two teams that seemed to be matched evenly and one that I wanted to win much more than the other, the Celtics.

Problem is the games didn’t start until after 9. There is no point in even starting to watch when I know that I’d have to stay up later than I wanted just to get to halftime. I realize this makes me sound like an old man. Well, I am and I try and get up around 5am each morning to get to work at a reasonable hour.

For Game 4 I was up later than I expected so I checked in before going to bed. The Lakers were up big but the Celtics were playing hard and hitting shots. I wanted to watch the rest but it wasn’t happening. From watching the Sixers come back so many times this year I’ve learned to sense when the tide is starting to turn in a major way.

The best part of the Finals has been that Kimmel is on at 8 on game nights. Each show has been great, his usual show is good but I don’t think anybody watches it. Hopefully people watched these specials, were surprised at how good his show is and will start checking him out at his regular time.

Tip off is coming up and I’ll be watching … probably something else. I’ll check in before bed.

I put up the Triumph at The Belmont video that was on Conan on Thursday. When I saw it, I knew it was something I wanted to share. When I went to Hulu it was available as its own clip.

I still would have been able to share it since whole episodes of Conan are on Hulu. When you choose to embed or share you can select the start and end point of your clip. I think this is a really great feature. I’m sure I’ll become an expert at sharing segments of Colbert. I’m not sure if there is a different in time available between clips and episodes. The episodes may expire more quickly than the clips. Maybe clips don’t ever expire? I’ll have to keep my eye on it.

Another very nice feature is that the video is widescreen. That’s great for widescreen shows such as Conan. The problem I see with this is, say you want to share a Family Guy clip. Family Guy is not widescreen. It can’t be that difficult to provide different sized players. Still, I’d rather have the widescreen and lose the horizontal space.

My biggest issue is that when I clicked play on the clip it rolled a 30 second commercial to start. I don’t mind the commercials when I’m watching a whole episode of something on Hulu but if the clip is only 4 minutes long, a 30 second commercial to start is a bit much. In my opinion, with any embedded clip a commercial to start is a bad idea. If its not something I’m very interested in, I’m not going to keep watching. Plus, with NBC being part of Hulu, isn’t just the clip from Conan itself an advertisement to watch Conan?

I’m a big fan of Hulu so far and now that they have The Daily Show and The Colbert Report I’m not as worried if my DVR decides to skip things anymore.

The one question I have left is, how long will this clip be active?

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog went to the Belmont Stakes. I post this because its great and to see how well Hulu embedded videos work.

Carolla did Made Up Movies again yesterday, Part 1 and Part 2. This continues to be my favorite segment on the show, which is really saying something.

David Sedaris on The Daily Show - Enjoyable interview. One of the few people who’s books I will go out and get, then actually read.

Bo Burnham - New Math - New YouTube Song from Bo. I saw him open for Joel McHale.

Chris Bosh on Leno - He reports from the NBA Finals for Leno. The second thing I’ve found funny on Leno in a month, doubling my lifetime total.

Pool Pogo Stick - At first I thought it was funny and worthless. Now, I kind of want one.

Water Slide with Loop - You get started by dropping through a trap door. Something seems dangerous about this.

Pillow Rings - Someone must have gotten tired of having knuckles imprinted on their cheek.

Disney World in 3D - Travel to Disney World inside of Google Earth.

You’ve Been Left Behind - Worried that you won’t get to say good-bye to your loved ones after you’ve been raptured. This site will email what you have stored on the site to who you select within 6 days of the rapture. How do they know the rapture has occured? Here is what they say: “This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.” Oh, and its not free. $40 for the first year but they expect a lot of signups so future years should be cheaper.

Don’t forget to make your picks for Ice Cream Helmet Horse Racing Picks. The Belmont is on Saturday. Pick the order you think the 10 horses will finish. You don’t have to had made picks in either of the other races to make picks for the Belmont.

Make your picks! (After you log in you will be able to make picks.)

Obama Apologizes for messing up a reporter’s game - This is from 06. Obama called on a reporter and said he had a baby face. The reporter said this caused him to lose his shot with another reporter. Obama called him and appologized. The audio is in the link.

Dippin’ Dots lost its patent - This makes me feel better. I was worried there would be an ice cream monopoly in the future.

Trump Marina to become Margaritaville - When I think Margaritaville, I think tropical. When I think tropical, I think Atlantic City.

Storm Chasing Tours - I got the idea in my head that I wanted to go on a tornado chase. This is what I found. They are pricey and appear to fill up quick. Better hurry.

Drunk driver runs into bike race. The picture is unbelieveable.

????????Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing - I thought this was a joke and just listened to see how bad it would be. I wound up listening to the whole thing and it was good. Apparently I just wasn’t aware and Wale is very good and very popular.

Electronics Energy Costs - See how much some common electronics cost to use or just be plugged in.

How Guitar Hero DS Works - I thought it looked ridiculous. With these instructions they are purposely making it appear even more ridiculous.

Wii Fit Parody - Technically this isn’t far from the truth. I still like the Wii Fit.

1989 Upper Deck Griffey Card - I don’t have this one in my collection. Reading this made me look around eBay but I’m out of the loop on baseball card grading.

Top 10 Announcers in Sports Movies

Worst First Pitches of All Time

10 Worst Broadcasters in Sports - Hits all the important ones. Dick Vitale and Chip Carey are way too high on the list.