No Politics Post

I took WaveGuide up to Anacortes yesterday. It was a lovely day for the four hour trip, complete with calm seas and even a few porpoises along the way. I'll be leaving it up there for a month or more for a new paint job and some minor maintenance. As you know, WaveGuide has been on the market for a couple of years now, but it badly needs to be freshened up somewhat. The lovely red paint (cranberry, actually) has faded quite badly, so the initial "wow" factor when looking at the boat diminishes rapidly the closer the prospective buyer gets. I'm having it painted a dark blue; a more traditional color for this kind of boat. I hope the market meltdown doesn't scare away any potential buyers. Some prospective buyers are going to Anacortes to look at it early in October. I just hope they weren't bond traders with Lehman Brothers.

There has been enough bad news out there lately, so hopefully this will brighten your day. Here are the results of the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. The winners:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
12. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes and it's a serious bummer.
13. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
18. Caterpallor (n.): The colour you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

And for those of you who find numbers at all interesting, check out this site. It describes Benford's Law, a little known "law" about the random distribution of numbers. I don't know if it's actually a real mathematical law or just way of describing what intuitively should be random, but really isn't. The basic premise of Benford's Law is that you can take virtually any list or table of numbers of any phenomenon ranging from utility bills in Moldava to lengths of the world's rivers, and tabulate the first digits of those numbers. You'd think that the distribution of those numbers would be random, but in fact you get far more 1's than 9's. That's just plain weird. Maybe the site I found is actually a mathematical spoof, and maybe I've been totally sucked in, but given the fact that I lead a pretty indolent lifestyle, I think I can do some research on my own. I'll report back.