Reality Check

Section 21+

2009-10-15T08:30:00.003-05:00

I miss Monty.

Reality:
I only meant to watch the first 2 minutes, 'cause it cracks me up.....but I ended up watching until the flagrant violation.

Believe.

2009-10-04T18:20:00.008-05:00

I don't believe in ghosts, but this is difficult to explain away....
Keep your eyes on the far doorway.

Reality:
I guess we see unexplained things everyday.

Power, redefined.

2009-09-24T08:47:00.005-05:00

Wow, still in the reader, huh? Ok, welcome back.
First, a primer.
This used to be the fastest production car in the world:

0-60 mph: 3.2 seconds
Top speed: 240 MPH
“It” is the McLaren F1. Produced by the same McLaren that sponsors Formula One cars (duh) and aptly named the “F1” – hey, these guys are engineers not highly paid creative guys.
It even looks like its speeding standing still, doesn’t it?

Meet its successor to the top speed throne – The Bugatti Veyron:

0-60 mph: ~2.5 seconds.
Top speed: 253 MPH

“So what” you say, “its not THAT much faster.”

That is until you realize that if you are in a drag race to 200 MPH, and you are driving a Veyron, you can give the F1 a head start to 120 MPH and you’ll still beat it to 200!!

Whoa.

Reality:
As an extra added bonus for you enviro types:
The Veyron has a 26.4 gallon gas tank.
Which means, if you run it at full throttle, the tank will run dry in just 12 minutes.
Suck on that, treehuggers.

Jeremy said it best:

[ "(This is) the greatest piece of engineering ever. No, I'm sorry, this is the greatest car ever made and the greatest car we will ever see in our lifetime." ]

I don't get it.

2009-09-06T12:27:00.004-05:00

How many reasons can there be to not make this movie?
Is it greed over contractual minutia or the quest to appease and sate the hardcore gamers with a quality, worthy product that leads Hollyweird to miss the boat entirely?

‘cause I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a while now…and this "preview" is as good as it gets.

Reality:
Do I really need another reason to buy an XBox360?
This game was the only reason I was going to buy it.
T-minus 24 days to B-day....

For Fred & Jimi...

2009-08-31T15:58:00.002-05:00

Good news/bad news

Yes, “my” team won and yes, Fred, “my” team is a futbal team.

So what’s the bad news, you say?
Well, my guy didn’t play at all (age and back problems are apparently not desirable in top-tier sports) but more than that….

Reality:
Their 3 best players – who were ridiculously impressive – were Brazilian nationals.
These guys aren't even stars on the team.
Rut Roh!….looking reeeeally bad for the Azzurri to defend, I must say.

Hey, Packer fans...

2009-08-22T12:18:00.006-05:00

Don't you wish Mike McCarthy would give an interview at the beginning of the season and said some thing like:

[ "We are Green Bay Packers and must live up to this name" ]

Well, my coach did just that.

Reality:
All you anti-soccer types, sorry.
Kickoff is tomorrow.
FORZA JUVE!!

Yikes!!

2009-07-28T08:48:00.003-05:00

A month....ugh...
I've been too political at RDW lately. Apologies to the 3 readers (yes, I know one is me).
I think I'll go hard-geek on this blog. Eh, its a release.
With that said...

Since this blog is called “Reality Check” I’m going to make a prediction that is based on a simple observation derived from extreme geekatude and my inability to NOT watch Discovery/History channel shows rooted in astrophysics:

You and I, nor or children nor our children’s children will travel anywhere near say….Uranus (insert joke here).

It’s simple math really (and anyone that knows me knows how I feel about math).
Right now our fastest rocket ship goes about 17,000 miles per hour. Granted, I’ve gotten speeding tickets for less but in reality, this is a snails pace.

Space is big (I expect a call from Stockholm after that brilliant piece of insight).
If we were able to shoot “straight at Mars”, at 17,000 mph it would take you roughly 130 days.
Great.
Then there’s the trip back.
And the supplies.
And the fuel.
Oh, and then there’s the nagging “cant really shoot straight there because of the whole motion of planets” thing.
And what if we went rediculoulsy faster? Say…..1,000,000 miles per hour?
Yup, about 35 hour trip.
Anyone think we’re close to achieving this speed?

The universal speed limit is ~186,280 miles per second (~669,600,000 MPH). Even if we were to achieve (close to) this and we shoot “straight to” Uranus (Ha! I’m a child, I know…)– it takes light roughly an hour and a half for light to travel there from Earth.
Well that would work – kinda. Unfortunately, that speed will not soon be approached.

Mars?
Maybe in a few decades.
Believe me, no one is more disappointed at this reality slap in the face than me.

Reality:
What if we go the other way, say...to Mercury?
Well that becomes even more problematic. You see, the Sun is hot (can you say Nobel Prize #2?).
I mean really hot.
As Jimi would say “Africa hot”….times a Gagillion-gazillion,
Ohh yeah…Nobel Prize #3!

*(FYI - I would have picked Pluto, but apparently its not an honest-to-goodness planet anymore. Pfft...)

Final Edit.

2009-06-27T09:29:00.001-05:00

Reality:
I really like penne all'arrabbiata...its my fav.
This would have really made the movie more popular, dontcha think?

Comin' at ya!!

2009-06-19T09:29:00.005-05:00

Reality:
This is actually my favorite song from the old country, circa 1976.
The song is really not about what I had been led to believe....
Long story that can only be explained verbally or at a much later time.

You drive like a girl.

2009-06-07T19:09:00.002-05:00

You wish.
I know everyone is all bent out ouf shape over Danica Patrick, but she's just a telentless seat warmer compared to Sabine Schmitz.
Look her up on You Tube if you have the time.
Watch one lap. The "Queen of the Nurburgring" is well worth the driving lessons.

Reality:
While this may be an older clip, whats not to love??
I recomend watching the entire thing (to get the full effect of why I love Top Gear so much), but the money lines are from 4:50 to ~5:55.
I wish I could drive like this girl.

You're kidding right?

2009-06-01T09:36:00.001-05:00

This looks like a cross between uber-cute and cute.

Reality:
Ok, so I'm a big ol' geek.
Or did someone else think this looked like a character from the old "Magician Lord" (fast forward to 1:39 - 1:43) game?
Hey, its my favorite game. What?
(hey, at least you're not married to me. somewhere the Mrs. is shaking her head, I'm sure)

You can't do this.

2009-04-16T09:31:00.006-05:00

No, you can't.
This whole post is basically all stolen from Geekologie.
Dude cracks me up every post.

This is a video of Isao Machii, who is billed as a modern-day Samurai, showing off his skills with the blade. It's a long video, so I'll direct you to the good parts.
1:45: Cuts the top half of a mushroom's cap off. Sent shivers down my pants.
3:30: Horizontally cuts a bean lengthwise. Sent shivers down my pants.
5:15: Cuts a 6mm Airsoft BB shot at him in half. GW realizes bringing a gun to a Samurai fight might not be enough.
8:00: Cuts an iron pipe in half without bending or warping the pipe. This part is skippable, since I totally could have done that. With my penis. HI-YA, BITCHES! Youtube Thanks to Jason, who once got a watermelon pregnant just by glancing at it in the produce section of the grocery store.

Reality:
But you should watch the first 50 seconds, anyway. This guy is totally sick.
The yutzes on Amazing Race, Survivor nor Deal or No Deal also cannot do this (well, maybe #10 on DoND, but I digress...).

Tofuing.

2009-04-10T09:18:00.005-05:00

Welcome to the new, constantly offended America:

Reality:
Granted, this may not be the easiest licence plate to explain to small children (oh, sure, you'll tell them that she just likes the food...while you and your other adult friends are snickering).
But this crazy-ass tree hugger (oh, shut up. I'd bet the farm and the condo I'm right) says:
"If the DMV is going to start censoring what people are thinking, that’s a little bit too 1984-ish for me."
NO, you crazy-ass. It's living in 2009 under the...er...broomsticks YOU elected....from a government agency THEY created.

Never too early...

2009-03-27T09:50:00.003-05:00

...to embark on a life-long skank crusade.
This really shock anyone?

Reality:
"...before you married the beast atop Mt. Bloodfang and were sealed to the ogre clan forever."
Classic advice.
The Maiden's chorus said it best, methinks.

Never a fan.

2009-03-05T09:58:00.003-06:00

Sure, Letterman has had his funny, even hilarious moments. But have you seen it lately?
Holy suckville, Insomniac Man!
Seriously, he usually has 1 guest on.
This week the guests have been (seriously):
Monday - Katie Couric (wtf?! all hour??)
Tuesday - Felicity Huffman and some comic mostly known in New York.
Wednesday - Dr. Phil

So why am I going through this torture?
Well, U2 has a new album and they will be on all week as the musical guests.

This bit made it worth DVR'ing (you're damn skippy I fast forward most of it):

Reality:
Even when Katie Couric (Katie Couric!!!) was trying to be magnanimous towards W, D-bag -- I mean Letterman, had to take shot after shot at W.
U2 won't be on after Friday.

2009-02-21T16:44:00.001-06:00

Late to the party.

2009-02-18T10:09:00.003-06:00

I’m pretty sure I’m the first, last or only person to have this moment of clarity, but it happened. (Late to make my point, too, I think - so please bare with me…)

Anyone that knows me at all knows that I watch any TLC, NatGeo or Disc. Channel shows that deal with astrophysics, astronomy or even parallel universes.
Don’t get me wrong, some of those topics and the math behind the theories can make me a little light-headed, but I’m a complete geek and I love ‘em. I guess that’s probably the result of loving the science, but not being able to do the actual math (string theory…wtf?!?).

Last nite, I was watching one of said shows that I had DVR’d (oh, yeah..the Mrs. loves that…) about the largest explosions in the known universe. They worked their way up in scale, and then declared that The Big Bang – the explosion that created the universe – was the unquestionable winner. After all, it contained everything, and it created everything…including time; since there was only void prior. They went on to say that until the mid-90’s, scientists postulated that the expansion of the universe would stop and then it would all end in The Big Crunch – when the universe contracted back on itself and the cycle is repeated.
In the 90’s they discovered that the universe was not only NOT contracting, but it was expanding at a record pace (record?!? compared to what??!?!).
So some of these giants of science decide to re-explain it away by coming up with a new theory to explain the expansion: dark energy. I won’t bore those of you still here, but it basically said: “forget what we though about the affects of gravity, just believe us that this is the reason.”

Funny theory, the big bang…one astronomer said that it was a meaningless question to ask what was there before or around the big bang “epicenter” prior to the explosion.

Is that because they can’t explain it?
That’s when I realized that the scientist and astronomers, et al are simply too afraid to confront the truth: that there was already a book that explained the “big bang” long before any of them was even born.
The name escapes me right now, but I’m sure someone will know it when I tell you about the line I do remember:

“[ Let there be light. ]”

Reality:
Isn't it funny how "regular" people are willing to embrace a duality rather than just knock down those eggheads that would not be willing to reciprocate?

I USED to rule the world...

2009-02-16T10:56:00.000-06:00

...but I'm actually a stupid hypocrite.

Reality:
The Germans (my overlords) call this "schadenfreude."
I kinda wanted an SUV to drive over his foot as soon as he decided to plug Barack Obama after one of their songs on SNL.
Go eat some chips, you non-able-to-vote-in-my-elections dink.

Relax....

2009-02-10T20:45:00.005-06:00

Just so we don't all get too obsessed with the vastness of the "spendulous" package, I present some perspective.

Reality:
None of those stars are the biggest known to man.
THIS is.

Dude! Are you serious?!?

2009-01-27T22:33:00.009-06:00

Your International Spy Name is Wolf Goodnight

Your Code Name: Punchline
You Reside in: Geneva

Why You're a Good Spy: You're a good lover

What's Your International Spy Name?

This is totally me!

Reality:
Well, the reality is that this is just another stupid internet timewaster.

.....but its really freakin' cool!

Ughh....

2009-01-22T10:28:00.002-06:00

I'm getting old.
Today is the 25th anniversary of the most influential commercial ever.
IMHO. After all, it aired once and it was tour de force.

Reality:
And so began the age of granola and elitism.
Just because you have an Apple computer, does not mean that you have a better product. It's difficult for all you Applejacks to grasp, I know.
But it's true.

Sorry, ladies...

2009-01-16T10:09:00.003-06:00

Sometimes its just good to be a guy.

Reality:

Clearly, just guys would be bad.

Its just such a simpler life.

Bad news, geeks:

2009-01-13T13:30:00.003-06:00

HA!
Your XBOX360 and Wii are outdated...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Reality:
Damn.
So is my PS3...and the other two I wanted to buy.

Admit it,

2009-01-03T21:31:00.003-06:00

You have a dirty mind:

Reality:
Of course I DVR this.
Better to wake up to this humor than anything on the local stations.

G'head: Make up a better story.

2008-12-29T07:26:00.002-06:00

This has to be the dumbest thing...ever.
In the history of ever.
But the staggeringly stupid part comes with this line:

[ "We need a bailout for kids at risk" ]

Huh??!?!?

What's the bailout going to be?
Common f**^ing sense??"
"Don't pull the f*&^ing trigger as a solution to your problem??"
"Don't be in a gang??"
WTFF!!??

Reality:
Truly, I missed out on several opportunities in real life.
I could have gotten government/private grants for studies that everyone can guess the answer to (I'd consult Captn. Obvious, of course.)
We as Americans only need a bailout from stupid people.