One more thing about the

One more thing about the concert. This was probably one of the funniest events of the evening, aside from Dar’s stories which are always funny. Right before intermission, a minister of the church in which the show was held came out to speak to the audience about the two organizations and their goals. He made a comment about writing letters to our president, George W. Bush. As soon as his name was said, the entire audience started grumbling, hissing, and just generally making a lot of uncomfortable noises. Just an observation.

Last night I saw Dar

Last night I saw Dar Williams again at the Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton. The show was sponsored by the Coalition for Peace Action and Isles, Inc. While the Coalition tries to raise awareness of war situations around the world, for example, by suggesting we write to our President asking him to get rid of “hair-trigger” nuclear weapons systems, Isles is more community related, based in Trenton, and they try to help citizens think for themselves and take responsibility in the world.

Dar is always fun to see. She has so many great stories to tell about her music, and she has a wonderful voice. And she’s cute, too.

Speaking of California, sorry I

Speaking of California, sorry I haven’t gotten any stories from vacation up yet. Here’s a quick one.

I’m not exactly a great bowler. In high school, we were able to take Bowling as an elective in our gym class. That’s where most of my experience comes from. My average score was probably just a little bit over 100, and I remember that I would get excited when I broke 120. I’ve only bowled a few times since then.

While we were in southern California, Alissa and I passed a bowling alley on the way to the beach to go whale watching. She commented that she hadn’t gone bowling in a while and would like to go. I told her that sounded fine with me, so the next day, we went.

The only bowling ball I could find that felt right to me had a crack in one of the finger holes and was really uncomfortable, but maybe that’s the trick to bowling a really good game. We played four games, and my score in the first game was a 168. Alissa was already unhappy with me because I told her I was pretty bad. You can bet I was pretty happy about bowing a 168. I think my score for the next game was 138, but it’s really not important, because I started the third game with five strikes in a row. How in the world did I do that? I have no idea, but I did know that by this point Alissa was pretty upset with me for making her think I was less than average. My score for that game was 201. The guys in the lane next to us even congratulated me on a good game. The league representatives rushed over and tried to get me to sign up. Just kidding on that last part.

After that, our fourth game wasn’t much of anything, but we were both tired by then. If I get a chance I’ll write some more California stories later.

Every once in a while,

Every once in a while, I get one of those email petitions, telling me I need to add my name and address to the list and pass the email around so that National Public Radio will not be forced to be shut down, or something similar. The petitions state than every 100th signatory should forward the email to SomeGuy@TheUSCongress.gov, to show all the names that have been collected.

Now first, let’s think about that last statement. Let’s say Person 99 “signs” the petition and passes it on to 15 friends — everyone in his address book. Let’s say 9 of his friends just ignore and delete the email, but the other 6 care very deeply for NPR. You now have 6 peope who would be the 100th signatory on their own list. But guess what? There’s actually ten Person 99’s because Person 98 sent it out to everyone in his address book. Now if each of those Person 99’s sent the letter to 15 friends, 6 of whom follow the instructions, you’ve got yourself 60 different Person 100’s emailing SomePoorGuy@TheUSCongress.gov, each with an IDENTICAL list up to Person 98.

If you keep going backwards, you can figure out the math yourself to determine the number of Person 100’s there would really be if everyone responded to these petitions.

Does a flood of mostly identical emails change a Congressperson’s vote? No, the members of Congress and smart, and they do exactly what you should do: DELETE.

Thanks to David for the link, who got it from Eliot

Driving on US Route 1

Driving on US Route 1 from Lawrenceville to New Brunswick every morning is the least enjoyable part of my commute. And apparently I’m not the only one to think so. Out-of-staters don’t like the stretch of road either, as was evident by a license plate I saw today:

Pennsylvanians hate Route 1 too

Well, we’ll be approaching the

Well, we’ll be approaching the one-year anniversary of the date I started using Blogger on my website. Hm. I don’t think I’m going to make a big deal out of that like some people seem to do. I mean, really. Why? Looking back at the stuff I used to write it all seems so much more interesting than what I write now. That could be due to the fact that back then I knew no one actually read what I was writing, and now that I do know that people read this, and I know who they are, I don’t write about the same sorts of things.