monkey nonsense

so i saw this sale on sigg water bottles and thought, perhaps i shall get some. since plastic have been shown to have bpa or whatever and my bottle is from before they started selling them labeled with bpa-free. i heard those metal ones were safe. so i was about to order a sigg bottle when i started reading negative reviews. apparently aluminum (what the sigg bottles are made of) is not entirely safe either and the sigg bottles’ liner wasn’t bpa-free until only recently (past year or so). reviewers were telling me to get kleen kanteen instead! which apparently is stainless steel. of course research into that says that those bottles are made in china. manufacturing kiss of death? how soon before there’s a recall on them?! so…. i don’t know what kind of bottle to get. and i’m sure in five years research will show that neither of the bottles are good. but i just want something to hold my water!! what to do?

latest supreme court nominee is jewish. read an article on cnn about how the court is now catholics and jews, but the author was saying that in reality, the catholics and jews and protestants share similar views (on governing) so it doesn’t really make a difference. but the author brought up how a more diverse supreme court would still be nice. (article – http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/19/do-6-catholics-3-jews-9-protestants/?hpt=C1)

Then read the comments, one of which said how the only way to have true separation of church and state is to have only atheists on the supreme court.

questions

• does atheism count as a religion?
• can u have separation between church and state with religious people?
• can u have separation between church and state with ANY group of people? because people will always have an inherent belief (believing in the absence of god is still a belief no?) this is kind of combination of the first two questions i have
• “The separation of church and state was to prevent the state from establishing a state church and to prevent the meddling of the state in religion.” (another comment) – true or not?
• if the above bullet point is true, what is meddling?

it’s springtime! with the nice weather and extra motivation that comes with nicer weather, i’ve got a list of things i want to do… let me know if you want to do ‘em with me!

• crabbing. i want to go a lot. i want to catch a lot.
• crab feast. regardless of whether the above bullet point happens or not, i want to have a crab feast… either purchased or caught… i want a crab feast!!
• learn guitar. anyone giving lessons? taking group lessons? the last time i tried to learn guitar, i didn’t have any goal… i got a goal now. i want to learn how to play that thing you do or stacy’s mom on guitar.
• play tennis.
• fly a kite.
• go kayaking
• go see movies outside in Rockville/Reston/DC/Arlington… so many places show movies outdoors now!

wow, a fourth of 2010 is over! let’s see… what have i been up to?

• i still have no furniture. i’ll post a picture of my doctor’s waiting room living room once i get the pic off my camera.
• i’ve been sick twice since the new year and three times this winter! on the plus side, no fractured ribs this year! and the weather is starting to get warmer so perhaps the worst is over.
• i’ve stopped tutoring SAT (last student was uber genius man… only tutored 5 sessions and she killed that test!!). i’ve stopped tutoring at little lights. (side note: went to help out at camp hope one evening and some of the kids seemed to recognize me a little… not that they remember me, but they asked if i was around last year or if i was still tutoring? … i was terrible though, they asked me if i remembered them and all i could say was i remember their faces, but not their names =( booo on me!!) so what have i been doing…
• attending lots of weddings. so last year, i said 2009 was the last year of lots of weddings… i was wrong! stilll got a bunch this year. also… when i say “a bunch”, i mean like 3 or 4. i do NOT understand people who have no free weekends during the summer because of weddings… that would drive me nuts! i would just stop attending weddings at that point! hahah
• football. yup, that’s still going.
• i’m also trying to get back into cooking. i have a fairly nice kitchen that i underuse considerably. i’m also trying to learn the guitar (for real i mean, i always say i’m trying to learn it…). And I’m actually pretty up to date with my TV watching (fav shows at the moment: modern family, burn notice, chuck. himym is slowly losing favor for me…)
• i met the president.


thanks jason for the arrow!

haha, i was looking for a shredder deal on slickdeals… i’m still sorting through junk mail that came to me at post tysons that i moved with me! identity theft has scared me from just throwing them out! so i’ve been hand ripping them….

anyways, there was a slickdeal for a $20 shredder. i contemplated buying that, but really with the amount of junk mail i have, i’m pretty sure i’d kill that $20 shredder within a week…

and then i read this post on the forums:

You’re going to want to spend a minimum of 800 dollars on a paper shredder. Any less than that and the quality is going to be so low you’ll want to replace the damn thing within 5 years, but you won’t be able to because your identity will have been stolen and your bank account emptied.

If you’re serious about shredding, get something with carbide cutting heads and at least a .5HP motor. I have a Rawlings-Chamberlain MK220 AKA “The Silver Knight” .
It comes fully loaded with a dual rubber roller feeder and 6 layer hopper to separate different kinds of paper, wood, metal, etc.. I can shred a New York telephone book in under 15 seconds.
The built in milling computer lets me customize the shred pattern to meet any security needs. I prefer a 3mm parallelogram with bilateral fiber separation. You can’t even make out individual characters on those things.

Send me an IM if you’re serious about this. Welcome to the world of paper shredding. You’re in for a hell of a ride.

HAHAHHAHAH… this guy is awesome. if he’s making this stuff up, i love the attention to detail. if he’s not making this stuff up, wow.

entire thread here: http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1903644

the young canadian pair just ice danced to bohemian rhapsody!! that was my idea!!

gold for vonn, white, and davis!
silver for mancuso!
bronze for lago and hedrick!

that’s SIX medals! all in one evening!

and ohno, celski, and US short track relay team qualifying!

i don’t know why i become so patriotic when it comes to the olympics! it’s got to be all the american biased olympic commentary i grew up with!

interesting article about the official curling condom!!

there are a few more odd sponsorships as well. i wish i were rich enough to sponsor the US olympic team!

a few nights ago, i saw the VISA commercial where they showcased some russian athlete and ended with the tagline “Go world!” heck no! i’m all about the US of A! none of that “Go world” business! USA needs to beat those commies otherwise, we lose the cold war!! jk

was watching the pairs ice skating… or was it ice dancing? i don’t know. i haven’t cared much for ice skating for awhile now.

in any case, i was liveIMing with julie. basically flooding her with my thoughts and reactions to the olympics (because she had asked if i was going to liveblog.) and we got into a discussion about the music for ice skating. i feel it was kind of lame and cheesy and melodramatic. the subject of costume also came up (“what about those galaxy quest costumes”? nice.) the artistic costumes are so overdone. i want to see an ice skater just show up in whatever.

today i read an article on the washingtonpost about the music choice. my favorite quote is: “Increasingly popular, too, are film scores. ‘Film scores have no rhythm,’ Hurwitz says. ‘It’s just mood music, not meant to be choreographed. But they do it anyway, because they liked the movie [and can] wear a funky costume.’” hahha, i love how he brings up the funky costumes!

i think i should be a choreographer. here are some of my ideas:

• let’s go to the mall… on ice. there are some amazing dance moves in there that should translate well to ice. costumes – robot costume? bedazzled jean jackets?
• bohemian rhapsody. that song goes through so many different moods/tempos.. it’s like many songs in one! you have the fast part where they can be building up into a jump and then slower parts where they can do the nancy kerrigan glide (michelle kwan also known for this…)
• rodeo. beef! it’s what’s for dinner! same reason as bohemian rhapsody… lots of stuff to work with. plus, it’s classical so you can appeal to the more traditional judges. actually, i do wonder if anyone has choreographed to this song before because it really isn’t that bad! but i would propose they dress up in cowboy getup.

i thought it stunk.

i love the olympics! i get so excited every time! i love the parade of athletes even though it’s just a bunch of people walking in. i like guessing how many athletes each country has.

but these opening ceremonies? sucked in my opinion. i always rag on canadia… and these opening ceremonies didn’t do much other than to give me more things to make fun of canada for. i felt like they stole from other countries… with the whole irish jig/tap dancing/clogging bit. batman (guy with the funky hair) playing the fiddle was amusing mostly because they had him fiddling in front of a moon thereby creating a bat signal like silhouette. and then having k.d. lang sing the song from shrek? i didn’t see how it fit into the mood of things. finally… the choices in artists. WHERE WAS CELINE DION?! u had joni mitchell (only heard of her), bryan adams (everything i do… i do it for youuuuuu), and sarah maclachan, but no celine dion?! or barenaked ladies?! and then there was the guy who just stood there on the platform and spoke. at first, i got excited when the announcer said that something about youtube and you saw a single person on a platform… my hopes were high that it might be robin sparkles… instead it was a guy telling me “canada is the what in what’s new”. really???

note: i did think they had the tough task of one-upping beijing’s opening ceremony. which is very unfair, because no one’s ever going to have the same budget as they did and plus, china was ridiculous with their prep (there were stories about people getting hurt from too much practice right?) so i’m partially joking… but also not, because i didn’t find it that entertaining…