Please don't kill me...

If you have turned on the news at all in recent weeks, then you have undoubtedly seen something about the Danish cartoon depicting Muhammed and the related violence. The Quran, Islam's holiest book, condemns idolatry, but has no direct condemnations of pictorial art. Direct prohibitions of pictorial art, or any depiction of sacred figures, are found in certain hadiths, or recorded oral traditions.

Well if these Muslims are so devout in their beliefs that they would kill someone over a cartoon, then aren't they being very hypocritical? I mean, how do they even know what Muhammed looks like if it is blashpemous to even create or look at depictions of Muhammed? Maybe the cartoons are just of some Arab guy. Or maybe they are of me when I have my thick beard. Or maybe one of the guys from ZZ Top. Viva Las Vegas!

Change for a Dollar?

You know how a lot of restaurants have the framed one dollar bill on the wall commemorating the first dollar the restaurant ever made? Honestly, what are the chances that the first transaction the restaurant made was for only a dollar? Do restaurants even sell stuff for less than a dollar? I mean, I doubt some guy went in and just ordered a coke.

America the Singular?

A very interesting thought crossed my mind while watching the national anthem last night during Super Bowl XL. And no, it wasn't that I hate Pittsburgh, the Steelers, and especially Steelers fans. It had to do with the good old U.S. of A. We all know (well some of us do) that there were 13 colonies and Delaware was the first colony to ratify the Constitution and become a state, followed by Pennsylvania. The dates were December 7, 1787 for Delaware and December 12, 1787 for Pennsylvania. So my question is this: What was America called during that 5 day period? It couldn't be the United States of America because there was only one state. Was it the United State of America?

Footnote: I have been trying to research this but to no avail. If any of my avid readers are history majors (good luck with that one) or history buffs (congrats on becoming a buff), then please let me know if you have any info on this topic.

(Update: 2/9/06)

I emailed a guy named Don Higginbotham, a history professor at the University of North Carolina, who specializes in colonial American history. He had no idea. Oh well, I guess it will remain a mystery.

99 cents my ass...

When you think of the Super Bowl, what's the first thing that comes to mind besides Donovan McNabb throwing up on Freddie Mitchell's cleats? The commercials. Well, with the big game coming up this weekend, it reminded me of an interesting commerical that has been on the past month or so for Wendy's and their 99 cent menu. I'm sure you've seen it.

A cop gives some guy a ticket, to which he responds, "75 junior bacon cheeseburgers?" Or a husband telling his wife, "You look like a million chicken nuggets." Does anyone else have a problem with this commercial? What are they trying to say? Is the ticket really for $74.25? 75 x $0.99 = 74.25 not 75. Or is the guy in the car that good at math and did the multiplication in his head?

Even worse, is the husband telling his wife that she looks like $990,000? I mean, 1,000,000 x $0.99 = $990,000 not $1,000,000. To analyze this situation even more, there are actually 5 chicken nuggets in the box. This further makes this guy's wife less good looking. A million chicken nuggets is actually only 200,000 orders making her really only look like $198,000. 1,000,000 / 5 x $0.99 = $198,000 not $1,000,000. I can bet he will be sleeping on the couch tonight if his wife were just a bit smarter.

Am I Fat? Well You're Not Obese...

I'm sure by now all of my loyal readers know that I come up with some really stupid posts. Well I like to think this one could actually be useful. I don't know how to do it but I'm just throwing it out there. Ok, here it goes...

I was watching the State of The Union speech the other night. I watched it on Fox. Apparently, Fox had the most viewers according to the Nielsen ratings because of American Idol being on before. Well we all heard W say that Americans are addicted to oil and we need to come up with alternative sources of energy to ween ourselves off of our sweet tooth. Personally, I would be sad to see gasoline go because I love the smell of gasoline but I guess it would cut down on the sudden increase in freak gasoline fight accidents. Anyway, I took W's statement to heart and took some initative to come up with a solution to this problem. The answer was literally right under our noses the whole time: Our mouths.

Where do humans, and for that matter all animals, get their energy from? I'll give you a second...time's up. We eat. Be it meat, fruit, vegetables, dairy, grains, oreos. Why can't the scientists come up with an engine/motor/machine that can convert food into energy much like animals do? It would sort of be like Mr. Fusion in Back to the Future Part 2. Think about it. We could put all of the food people don't like into this engine/motor/machine: beets, passion fruit, gefilte fish. Also, this would give the farmers tons of work to do growing crops so we can use them for fuel in my new V8 engine. Get it? V8, tomato juice. Anyway, the FDA really needs to team up with the NSF and get my new project off the ground.