Mr. Friend

My son's favorite stuffed animal growing up was a frog he called Mr. Friend.  It was hard not to like Mr. Friend.

Jet Jaguar Can Deadlift

 

Cow Power!

There was a small older fellow who lifted competitively at the UT Longhorn Open years ago, and he inspired us all with these kinds of sayings...

AI Caught Making an Error - Oops!

When I ask AI questions usually, either it doesn't make any error, or it makes errors I don't notice.  But this time it definitely made a noticeable error.  I asked it to verify the number 1984 in binary, and I believe 11111000000 is correct, but that translates only to 1024+512+256+128+64.  There should be NO 32 in the sum as AI stated here.  

The 11111000000 stands for 1*2^10 + 1*2^9 + 1*2^8 + 1*2^7 + 1*2^6 + 0*2^5 + 0*2^4 + 0*2^3 + 0*2^2 + 0*2^1 + 0*2^0

Hope I typed all that out right and didn't make an error myself.

Have it Now is the New Way to See

Years ago I wrote a satirical variant of Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me."  Not an improvement, and probably hasn't aged well.  But I don't think I published it anywhere, so might as well put it up now:

“What’s the matter with the song I’m playing

Will you tell me that it’s not the time?

Maybe I should sing of fame and fortune

And pretend that everything is fine

Nowadays everybody wants something sunny

Guarantees of fancy cars, and piles and piles of money

Everybody’s pushing all this new style on me

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

 

What’s the matter with the way they’re thinking?

It just seems like a twist of time

Back in old days things weren’t as easy

But there wasn’t nearly so much whine

Nowadays people go dancing all around town

They have tons of fun while their love of working goes down

Good days, good pay, good times, all the way

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

  

Oh, we get up every morning and we see in the paper

More bad news that we’ve already seen

Scientists working oh so hard everyday

To find the reason for every bad thing

Try to keep it all running

 

How about signing up with big business,

Where you use all of your great wit?

We can say for sure that you’ll love it

And you’ll never want to call it quits

You know if you say ‘no’ that you’ll get weaker

But saying ‘yes’ will make you a great and rich speaker

Oh man, what a plan, get it now, while you can

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

 

Best of all it’s not considered cheating

And there can never, ever be too much

Once you get your foot in the door and make money

 You’ll never, ever lose your touch

Good days, good pay, good times, all the way

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

 

Everybody’s pushing all this new style on me

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see”

 

My Best Man

One of my favorite people ever was the guy who was good enough to be best man at my wedding.  He was a handsome, fun, and talented fellow.  Studying mechanical engineering and could bench press over 400 pounds.  This boosted his ego to the point that some people found him somewhat insufferable despite the high amount of charisma that he also possessed.  But I loved it because he reminded me of all of the heels I watched on professional wrestling.  So I did my best to actually feed his ego even MORE just to see what happened.  It was a lot of fun, and he seemed to eat it up.  It sure was an easy way to become his friend.

But at the end of the day, he was smart and sensible enough to realize his limitations (even though he'd never admit them out loud) and never let his ego get TOO out of check as to be unhealthy in a way he couldn't handle.  His life never became unstable, and he ended up working at Lockheed Martin for many years.  I hope he's still doing well.  Because even though it seems like I just fed his ego as some kind of joke, I really did like the guy.  He was my best man for a reason.

The Desire For a Vision

Some people really seem to want to have a spiritual vision at some point in their lives.  Either to confirm their faith, or just because it sounds like it would be something really interesting to experience.  But I'd rather not experience such a vision myself.  In Biblical literature, God never has a vision for somebody unless he also has a special mission for that person.  Usually a difficult one.  That alone kind of puts a damper on my desire for any kind of spiritual vision.  I think I'm fine without one.  Especially since I quite enjoy that blurry line between fantasy and reality.  I wouldn't be a pro-wrestling fan if I didn't, or a fan of imaginary numbers and the interesting properties of holomorphic functions.

Perhaps an unconfirmed faith is sometimes best.  It's not like we'll be able to confirm everything we wish for in our lifetime anyway.  I'm in my mid-forties and I know for sure there are a lot of things I will never know before I pass away.

Maybe I had mysterious but meaningless visions before without ever knowing they were visions.  I believe I briefly mentioned in a prior post before something about an older woman in one of my community college art classes back in 2001, and her husband was a holocaust survivor that challenged me at arm wrestling one time.  As far as I know this was reality.  But can I verify it or can anyone else verify it either?  Probably not.  So someone can claim it was a vision and how can I prove them wrong?