movember envy

Every year around this time, I'm a little self-conscious about myself. My confidence is just a little bit lower as I realize that there is something many guys can do that I cannot. You see, this next month, men all around the world will be growing mustaches for Movember an annual, month-long event involving the growing of mustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of prostate cancer and other male cancer initiatives. Our company has a wide range of facial-hair competitions and fundraisers throughout the month to raise awareness for male-specific cancers and diseases. Many of my mustachioed colleagues will be wandering the halls as if it's just another day...sporting their mustaches and going about their business. Unfortunately, some of us are not empowered with the ability to grow such marvelous facial hair. Sadly, it has become obvious to me, that not all men were created equal.

the storm’s-a-brewin’

**This post is for my east coast cousins. I’ll definitely be praying for you today.**

I can’t really imagine what you guys are going through. I mean we have tough weather every once in a while here, but a rainy day isn’t really anything compared to a snowstorm, or in your current case, a hurricane. All I know about hurricanes are what I see on TV and wikipedia. Fun fact: hurricanes are only in the northern hemisphere – in the other hemisphere it’s a cyclone (I would imagine that fact is less fun if you’re in the middle of one). Anyways, hope you guys are safe and indoors. Watch out for things that are blowing in the wind such as mailboxes, patio furniture, etc, and hopefully you guys are staying dry too.

I leave you with this parting off-the-wall thought, since it is Monday (today’s is my weekly glass-half-full day). I suppose you guys could view this as being kinda lucky? No work today and you have perfect kite weather. Just remember to hang on tight to that string.

cute fuzzy animals, pt. 2 - the perfect storm

***If you read the last post, you should have learned your lesson by now. If you're still reading this, I'm assuming you know what you're getting yourself into...***

So Romney and Obama are currently hotly contesting the last remaining 10 battleground states of Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. With 538 total electoral votes at stake, one must reach the magical number of 270 electoral votes to take the election. Of course, political analyst all over are pouring over the various permutations of states that could decide the election.

Assuming each win the ones they're already projected to win, there is one interesting permutation out there that makes things very interesting. If Obama wins Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and Romney wins the rest of the battleground states, electoral math would give us a tie vote at 269 each.

Assuming no elector goes rogue and throws the election, this gives a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Presidential election go to the House of Representatives (the current session) for a vote; however, it's not just a regular vote. This is a special vote in which each delegation (state) gets one vote. Currently there are 33 republican controlled states in the House, which means Romney will emerge the likely victor.

The Vice Presidential seat isn't determined by this vote, as the VP is also the President of the Senate, so in the event of a electoral gridlock, the Senate (current) gets to elect the next VP. The Senate is currently controlled by the Democrats, so Biden will likely emerge as the VP, giving us the first P/VP combo from opposing parties since the 1796 election (Adams/Jefferson). Now wouldn't that be a hoot?

cute fuzzy animals

courtesy of derek tam

Let’s talk about cute fuzzy animals. I know on this blog I’ve covered the cuteness factor before. Evidently, in the scientific community, there is a correlation between appeal/overall attractiveness of the species and the degree of focus it receives from scientific studies. Essentially, there is a large number of endangered species condemned to extinction partly due to the fact that they’re ugly. I’m fairly certain this correlation extends to other avenues of life as well. In the workplace for example, your cuteness/attractiveness could potentially advance your career as people could subconsciously (or consciously) enjoy working with you more.

There is also evidence that attractiveness helps a person’s political career as well. The classic example is Nixon vs. JFK in the 1960 election. Nixon refused to wear makeup for the first televised debate ever, JFK looked way better than him, and Nixon lost the election. At this point I’d like to make a confession (spoiler alert). I’m actually using cute fuzzy animals as a sneaky way (=/ I’m sorry) to introduce the topic of what Romney needs to do to win this election. I apologize for the deception, but do you realize how hard it is to get someone to read a post about republican campaign strategy?? On the other hand, everybody loves cute fuzzy animals. They’re cute, fuzzy, what’s not to like?

So last night, Romney and President Obama debated for the last time, supposedly on foreign policy. These two do not really differ much on foreign policy, so the debate quickly turned to domestic fiscal policy. Long story short, Romney didn’t look so hot yesterday. To many voters, he looks like a decent option, but he doesn’t give off that presidential vibe that Obama does. In essence, he doesn’t look as attractive as a potential president, as the current president. And his chances (according to statistical data Sean forwarded) dropped overnight. He is currently projected to rack up 247 electoral votes, 23 short of the requisite 270. So, how does Romney make up that deficit and become more attractive to voters? In other words, how does he make himself into cute fuzzy animal?

My crackpot theory, is basically to cater to both young voters, and also Asian voters. I know, a lot of focus is on African American, Jewish, and Latino voters (in terms of minority groups), but not much effort seems to be aimed at courting the young (18+) and the Asians. Rock the Vote has been around for a while, but that doesn’t seem to do much in mobilizing the young voters. As far as Asian voters, there aren’t that many Asian folks in higher government offices (our people seem to focus on the sciences), so there isn’t as much of a voice for the typical Asian American voter. If Romney came out and courted both of these interest groups, it could fire up the electorate and get a lot of these young or Asian voters on his side (and ciphon Asian votes from the democrats).

Great, so how does he do that?? How does he make himself more attractive practically? There are so many options, speak at colleges, meet with youth groups, meet with Asian American associations in major cities, kiss Asian babies, even dance gangnam style onstage after the debate. He could be doing so much more to get their vote. I’m thinking courting the 18+ and Asian votes could potentially open up California for contest (right now it’s squarely blue) and possibly even New York. That puts 84 electoral votes (CA – 55, NY – 29) in play. All Romney needs to do is raise his profile with these two groups, look more like the cute fuzzy animal instead of the unattractive and soon to be politically endangered candidate.

five clicks to Jesus

thanks to a link provided by billy, and a deep determination not to sleep before 10pm last night (whenever I sleep earlier, I end up waking up ridiculously early or worse, wake up at midnight and not being able to sleep again till 3am), I tried my hand at several wikirace variants. If you don’t know what a wikirace is, it’s basically a Wikipedia navigation game. You start on a predetermined start-page (i.e. bananas) and you try to get to a target-page (i.e. Battle of the Bulge). The wikiproject page provided several difficult target pages that are apparently nearly impossible to get to (i.e. Mystery Seeker) and also a few suggestions for variations of the game (in case the original gets boring – impossible!)

Well, as it turns out, I gave one of the seemingly more challenging variants a shot – five clicks to Jesus. Basically, starting from the main page, you try to navigate to the Jesus page (apparently separate from the Christ page - I think PGee might have mentioned the difference in the sermon yesterday) in under 5 clicks. Apparently, it is much easier than I thought it would be. Using last night’s main page, I was able to get to Jesus in 4 clicks (Main --> US Presidents --> Obama --> Christianity --> Jesus). And as the main page changes daily, this game can always have varying results, which means a greater degree of re-playability.

I could see this game be a good icebreaker for a small group meeting or something…we’ll see =)

Dixon corn maze – 5th time’s the charm?

For four years I have been trying to get people to go to the corn maze. For four years I have been rebuffed. I tried with fellowship folks, friends from home (worst idea ever…hey wanna drive 2hrs up to walk through a cornfield? What was I thinking?!) work colleagues, even my parents (ok that one was predictable). Nada.

Now, personally, I’ve never been to a corn maze (hence the eagerness to explore) but I can imagine the fun of such a diversion from everyday life. Imagine you’re in between tall columns of corn, silently stalking your buddy from the next row over, waiting for the perfect moment to reach through and scare the yahoo out of him. Then you’ll share a well-timed chuckle and proceed to do the same too a stranger. Wouldn’t that be fun?!

it'll be like this...only taller.

So here I am on the blogosphere, proposing it once again. Who wants to go to corn maze on Halloween?! I would be quite tickled if plans work out this time. Hmm…maybe I’ll pitch it to fellowship again. 5th time’s the charm!

operatic life isn’t easy (apparently)

On Sunday afternoon, I picked up Puccini’s Turandot from the iTunes music store. I enjoyed several pieces from that composition and I figured I might as well listen to the whole thing to try to understand the storyline and also to see what all the hoopla was all about. 20 seconds in to the first song and I came to the realization that trying to understand the storyline from the track was futile – it is, of course, entirely in Italian (whups). So I hopped on Wikipedia to find a synopsis and try to follow along with the mp3s.

OH MY GOODNESS…

Apparently opera storylines are ridiculous! The drama in these things make our TV soaps look pedestrian. For example, the storyline of Turandot is as follows:

There’s a hot princess (Turandot) in China who makes all potential suitors answer three riddles. If you get them right, you get to marry the princess. Otherwise, you get beheaded. Then there’s a prince (unnamed) from some far-away land who is in the crowd as a failed prince of persia is getting beheaded. He bumps into a blind man as he is in the crowd, who he recognizes as his long lost father/King (also in the crowd along with his maid). Our prince says hi to his dad, looks up and sees the princess, and immediately falls madly in love. In his love, he runs up and takes up the challenge. He answers riddles correctly, but hot princess is repulsed by this prince (apparently our guy isn’t good-looking). Our prince (still madly in love) presents her a challenge: Since nobody knows his name, figure out his name by morning and he gets beheaded; otherwise, she must marry him. Clearly repulsed, she decrees that nobody shall sleep until she figures out his name (background to Nessun Dorma). If she can’t , all of her ppl will be beheaded. Then she finds our prince’s father and maid, tortures the maid in front of prince; maid reveals she’s secretly in love with prince, and kills self. Prince gets mad, reveals his name, but apparently still wants to marry her (again…madly in love). This time, he says…she can still behead him if she wants. She recognizes this as love, and agrees to marry him. The End.

Confusing right?! And I thought American soaps and chick-flicks had crazy drama…this thing has way more twists and turns! Geez I can’t imagine life having this much craziness! Zoinks…asking a girl out makes me nervous enough as it is...can you imagine throwing in riddles and the underlying threat of beheading too?? And she rejected him!! *sigh* we guys have it tough.