Internal Service Error. You've sunk my battleship.

While trying to navigate a website, this picture came up with the message:

"The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request."

Best photo of a service error ever.

Speaking of things that make me want to go killer-octopus on their ship of stupidity, the house down the street has had their Christmas lights up for a week. It's September. Three months early and wasting energy to celebrate the two-thousand and seventh anniversary of a birth seems a bit excessive to me. I know people that cannot be bothered to celebrate their twenty-third birthday.

However, this indiscriminate over-illumination irks me far less than the new prevalence of public service announcements. I am a fan of small states and the principle of survival of the fittest, two ideals that are not upheld by such announcements. Usually I could not be bothered to protest a specific state-sponsored nanny-ing announcement, after all, the fewer people playing in traffic, the less likely my car is to get hurt and the more perverse the Darwin Awards become. Even Alberta's new campaign about eating healthy does not sufficiently raise my ire to illicit objection.

However, I have extensive reservations about the newest safe driving radio campaign. I do not have a problem with the message that speeding kills, nor with the use of stand-up comedy as the setting for the commercials. Rather, I object to the campaign slogan of "speed limits save lives". Speeding may kill, not speeding may reduce deaths, however, speed limits are just numbers on a sign. The limits in and of themselves do not do anything; the mere existence of these limits does not save lives. The signs do even less - think of the additional property damage done when people run into those signs. Following speed limits may save lives, but there is a dramatic difference between the idea that compliance with a rule saves lives versus the idea that the mere existence of a rule has such an effect. And it is that technicality that has me eye the possibility of finding myself a killer-octopus.

Cyberslacking, Cyberloafing, or Cyberbludging

Today, I was introduced to the word 'Goldbricking', which refers to the practice of using one's internet access for personal use, while maintaining the appearance of working.

In tribute to my newly enriched vocabulary, I thought I'd share a means of internet procrastinating that I came across somewhere.

Step 1: Go to google,
Step 2: put your name followed by the words 'likes to' in quotation marks (for example "Bismarck likes to"),
Step 3: share the first ten results.

Here are mine (spot the references to Ariel Sharon, Sharon Osborne, and elementary material):

1. "An award winning speaker, Sharon likes to combine reading excerpts from her book with a dynamic presentation comparing the traditional "war model" for communicating with the new, Powerful Non-Defensive Communication model she has created."
2. "Sharon likes to read, listen to music, and run."
3. "Sharon likes to pose as a caring, maternal mentor."
4. "Sharon likes to say that he stands up to terrorists to show he is not afraid. In fact, his policies are driven by fear."
5. "Sharon likes to say she's “lived 50 lives in 50 years” and it sounds a fairly conservative estimate."
6. "Sharon likes to play with her blocks and her drum but she doesn't like to share."
7. "Sharon likes to draw. Hector is good at spelling. They like different things. They are both special."
8. "Sharon likes to talk.. .so I let her do all the talking."
9. "Sharon likes to cook, can’t you tell!"
10. "Sharon likes to sew or iron while Stan does the budget on the computer."

My favourites are numbers 6, 8, 9, and 3.

The site from which number 6 is from gave me this comic:

Debra, did you make this comic?

Cannibals are the only people that use 100% of the brain

It's that time of year again when squirrels are collecting acorns and nuts.

"Well of course, Sharon," one might say, "that's how nature works."

Throw in a head shake or an eye-roll and that's how one might respond to my statement. But there's more. On campus, this fairly regular - and some might even say mundane process - is far more compelling. See when the squirrels collect their acorns, they often chew them off and let them fall from the tree to the ground, from where they will collected at a later time.

"Yes Sharon," one might add, "that's how squirrels collect acorns. Squirrels are all efficient like that."

But wait, there's still more. As the squirrels do this on campus, the meandering students become walking bulls-eyes. I saw two different students nearly get hit. It was awesome.

I wonder if the squirrels get 10 points for students and 15 for faculty. Bonus points for anyone on skateboards.

And now for a complete 540 degree turn

"Eugenics is the answer, you are the question."

I'm going to leave that without any context.