take a leap

My favorite leap year memory (I guess I've only had a few) involves watching Frasier with my Dad a few years back (yes, he's a frasier fan too). The episode, poignantly titled "Look Before You Leap", was in my opinion, of the best Frasier episodes I've seen up to that point. It starts off with Frasier pointing out that Feb. 29th was one of the most special days, as it's a gift once every four years. He goes on to make a point of asking everyone in his household to "take a leap" and do something that they wouldn't normally do.

This is an example of good intentions going wrong, as is often the case for Frasier. Every once in a while, Frasier gets an idea in his head that he will try to apply to the lives of those around in others. Of course, in a classic example of Murphy's law at work, this day will inevitable go wrong. He pushes his father, Martin, into going to an old friend's birthday party, persuades Niles not to go groveling back to his estranged wife, talks Roz into giving an on-air shoutout to a cute guy she met on the bus, and sways Daphne into trying out the hairstyle she's always fancied. Lastly, he himself decides to sing a challenging aria for the PBS pledge drive that night.

Martin ends up having plane trouble, Niles gets even more frustrated at his situation, Roz's guy turns out to be married, and Daphne ends up with a horrific perm. It got so bad that Frasier ends up calling off his aria and going with something easier (Buttons and Bows), which he can't remember the words to. The episode isn't necessarily saying that you shouldn't take chances, as Frasier ends up backing out of his "Leap" and it ends up such a disaster anyways that it winds up cheering up the others after their miserable failures.

It's a pretty funny episode, and makes a really funny outcome out of a combination of disasters that befall Frasier's friends and family. If you ever get a chance, do look it up on youtube, you won't regret it. I know...a lot of people think that Frasier isn't for everyone, but hey, it's a leap year. Take a leap!

apps for apes

I saw this on yahoo this morning. Apparently an orangutan conservation group started up a program called apps for apes that buys ipads for zoos so that orangutans can use them to draw and videochat with others orangutans (presumably through facetime?). The logic is that they can therefore paint without the danger of accidentally eating the paint. *sigh* Scientific research befuddles me sometimes. I honestly don't know what kind of benefit we can get from knowing that apes can paint and videochat with each other. I know the organization accepts donations from individuals and such, but I seriously hope no government funding is going to this project. I just don't know how you can explain to a local PTA board that their kids don't have proper textbooks because you gave the money to buy ipads for some apes instead.

who gets this excited over a book??!

Last week marked the start of my amazon prime membership (after hearing everyone rant and rave about it, I figured it's time to jump on the bandwagon). It's my hope that I will be able to read more with this membership (although it's my nagging suspicion that I will end up using this membership for stupid stuff like toilet paper subscriptions or something). Anywho, my first 2-day shipping order arrived today!

The original 1776 book (David McCullough) was released to some pretty good reviews, and was a best seller when it was published, which is quite an accomplishment for a history book. McCullough is a two-time Pulitzer prize winner for his books on Truman and John Adams, and this book is meant to accompany the book on Adams.

see that wide folded paper in the middle? george washington's commission into the continental army. how cool is that?!!

The illustrated edition of 1776 (arrived today) contains the original text plus some additional cool stuff. Boasting 256 pages of pure historical awesomeness (ok, I suppose awesome for me, maybe not you...), this book packs in the fun with a detailed account of the pivotal year of the war with replica historical documents, letters, and maps (and for some odd reason it was cheaper than the regular kindle version). I'm not usually one to pull all-nighters for the sake of books (although I did the other night; different book, very juicy read), but I may be tempted to do it again with this one...

finally, a useful birdhouse.

 

I saw this slideshow on treehugger.com today (my first time on the site...I promise) about 10 creative ways to hang your bike on the wall like a work of art. It was pretty amusing to see what is possible to do in order to save space (in case you don't have room for a bike) and have your room not look like a garage at the same time. This gives me an opportunity to try one or two of these out, as I don't really want to pay $100+ for a normal standing bike rack from the bike shop, and having my bike simply lean on the side of the garage wall looks, well, kinda plain. I have to say, the birdhouse bike rack is my favorite (the squirrel scratching post rack is a close second). I just don't know if I'd be able to build something to look like this and have it be structurally sound at the same time. Well, what are weekends for eh?

and the plot thickens...

Just when I thought the 2012 presidential race couldn't get any more interesting, it happened. Roseanne Barr jumped into the race. She filed with the Federal Elections Commission in the beginning of Feb as a candidate for the Green Party nomination. I guess since Stephen Colbert dropped out of the GOP race, someone had to pick up the comedic slack. Man, this is one election I totally wish I could vote in. Can you imagine what would happen if there was a three way presidential debate between Obama, Gingrich, and Roseanne? Or if she taps John Goodman to be running mate?? wow...imagine the possibilities...

Who are all these people?!!

So last week I did something that I was so adamant about saying that I would never do. I got twitter. Now before you rain down the hate and the eye-rolls, I have to say, I have resolved to not actually use it. Well, I’ve resolved to kind of not use it. The reason I got it was because my friend Michelle kept feeding me the news from her twitter, and I always felt like I was one step behind. So the twitter account will only be used for news. Ok fine, news and sports updates. Ok maybe news, sports updates, and coffeeshop updates.

Yep. I will not be tweeting. Ever.

but then I also said I'd never get twitter either, so I guess we'll see. We'll just call this the Twitter Experiment. So anyways, I went about trying to sign up for an account, and I got to the username. Now, I am no longer in college, so I need a user name that isn’t very childish, and doesn’t include my age/birthday. So I went about trying different things. After 45min of trying, I had exhausted a list of usernames that I didn’t think people could possibly want to use. Names like:

jackzhu
jzhu
jyzhu
jack
zhu
yzhu
yjackzhu
jackyzhu
jackzhuy
jacko
jackozhu
jackolantern
jackcandlestick
ohsnapjack
hopelessjack
homelessjack
homiejack
eskimo
daeskimo
carl
mygoodnessjack
coffeenerdjack

Seriously, who are all these people?! I never had these kinds of problems signing up for gmail or anything…why is it all the remotely relevant twitter names are all taken?!! Bah. After 45min of searching I finally found a relatively relevant user name. Wow…that was a good chunk of my life that I will never get back.

giddy.

wheeeeeeeeeeeee... out of character? yep. you know why?!


It's Family Day!!


Apparently the Canadians realized that they have nothing between new years and good friday, so they enacted legislation in certain provinces. In Ontario, where the Toronto Exchange is, this was enacted in 2008, creating a holiday on the third monday of february, which coincides with President's Day. Since I'm in a Canadian group at work, I only get holidays off if both the US and Canada have a holiday, so the three day weekend that starts in a few minutes is a rare treat for me.

Woot!