Guess and Check

Pinnacle Mountain

Tom — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:27:41 +0000

I went hiking this morning up Pinnacle Mountain. I brought my camera so there are some photos in this album.

It was pretty nice up there.

Lance Armstrong tweets

Tom — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:12:02 +0000

So Lance Armstrong can be pretty funny sometimes.

The juanpelotacafe twitter feed (for the Juan Pelota Cafe in Austin) tweeted at Lance thusly:

His reply was:

Why, that’s just hilarious!

Cookie Monster

Tom — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:10:23 +0000

I saw this recently and found it quite funny:

Hot sauce packets

Tom — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:59:48 +0000

Someone likes to straighten the sauce packets at Taco Bell.

Each layer was rotated ninety degrees to preserve the neatness.

Calvin and Hobbes on the fridge

Tom — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:17:27 +0000

I recently came across this Calvin and Hobbes:

I recognized the fourth panel from its being on my parents’ refrigerator for as long as I can remember. I’m almost certain it’s still there to this day.

I wonder now if it has been there since its initial publication on July 31st, 1987.

Roger Ebert

Tom — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:23:17 +0000

I’ve always heavily favored film reviews from Roger Ebert. In fact, I can’t name any other film critic off the top of my head.

The guy just really knows his stuff. And he just loves movies.

The recent Esquire piece on him and his followup are must-reads for any fan of his.

2009 AR1000 tax form lines 53 and 54

Tom — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:36:58 +0000

So I noticed that my 2009 AR1000 tax form lines 53 and 54 have smilies.

No joke.

(click for large)

It’s clearer on their downloadable PDF form (as opposed to my screenshot of my TurboTax version here).

Castle title card

Tom — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:18:35 +0000

Today I’m going to be talking about the ABC television program Castle, starring favorite Nathan Fillion. No spoilers will follow, since I haven’t watched the show yet. (I’ve been aware of it since he mentioned it in an interview a while back when he said his mom had a Google Alert for the show (Hi Mrs. Fillion!), and it’s been on my to-watch list.)

While glancing at the show’s Wikipedia entry last night, I noticed the title card for the show. It immediately struck me as odd for a number of reasons.

Two landmarks are easily identifiable, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building. So first, I think “Okay, Empire State Building, this is a view of the Manhattan skyline from the Brooklyn side of the bridge.” However, that doesn’t work because a picture taken from around Empire Fulton Ferry State Park (which is where it would likely need to be taken from to get that angle of the bridge) wouldn’t have the Empire State Building in the background, since that’s way up at 5th Avenue and West 34th Street. It would also have all of the tall downtown buildings in the background, which it doesn’t.

CC-by-2.0 photo by morrissey

At this point, I also notice that the East River is wrong, as we can see the reflection of the first bridge pillar in the water, but if we were really on the Brooklyn side that pillar closest to us is on land, so we couldn’t see a reflection. So if that pillar closest to us is reflected in the water, the image of the bridge must be from the Manhattan side.

CC-by-nc-sa-2.0 photo by FromTheNorth

The Brooklyn skyline from that area doesn’t look like the one in the title card either, and I still haven’t figured out where that’s from.

So basically, what we have is 1) an image of the south side of the Brooklyn Bridge taken from the Manhattan side of the East River with a skyline in the background that doesn’t jive with the actual background of that area and 2) the Empire State Building plopped in.

What I can say though, after all this research, is that they fixed issue 2 in the second season’s title card.

That’s progress. Though I do wonder what precipitated the change.

Moneyball

Tom — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:56:13 +0000

I finally got around to reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis.

Great book, of course, but now I want baseball season to start already.

Starbucks drink choices

Tom — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:48:06 +0000

I think it’s bad that I find it hilarious to learn that these particular apparent gangbanger/skinhead/redneck/excessively-tattooed dudes drink things like Peppermint Lattes and Caramel Macchiatos.