Read It Yourself

President Obama is quite good at reading his speeches off of his teleprompters. The way he smoothly looks back and forth from teleprompter to teleprompter can be quite mesmerizing. Idea: Why not free him up to do more important things (like play basketball) and let us read the speeches directly? Simply turn the cameras to the teleprompter and let it roll. If you would like to practice, go to cueprompter.com. Here you can copy and paste any script that you want to read off of a real teleprompter, and then simply press START PROMPTER! You will have the option of white text with black background or black text with white background. There are variable speed settings from 1-9. You can also control the size of the text, and have normal text or reverse image. Now you can read presidential speeches off of a teleprompter just like a real president!

Discovery Problems Discovered

The NASA space shuttle Discovery sits upon its launch pad waiting for countdown to begin. Unfortunately, Discovery is currently powered down due to problems discovered involving the external fuel tanks. Discovery is suffering from external tank bracket crackage. The earliest possible date for blast-off is December 17, but more engineering evaluations, tests, and repairs are needed. Some casual observers are also commenting that the shuttle seems to be leaning a bit to the left (possibly to reflect the inclinations of the Obama administration).

Time Clock

The clock thought now what rhymes with time,
At the top of the hour it began to chime,
Time was pondering what rhymes with clock,
As seconds went by tick tock tick tock.

Caption Contest

It is time once again for another Caption Contest! Take a minute to comment a caption for this picture. Deadline for captions: 1 hour before the end of the world.

Contrary Contrail

This was the sunset scene in southern California this last Monday. Does this look like the vapor trail of an airplane to you, or perhaps does it more resemble a high-altitude rocket launch?

It gives me no comfort to hear that the Department of Defense either doesn't know what it was, or is playing it off as the vapor contrail of an aircraft taking off. If "they" supposedly don't know what it was, then how do they know that "there was no threat to the U.S. homeland"? The possible explanations given by "Defense Experts" are quite amusing. After saying that it is clearly an airplane contrail, they explain that it is just an optical illusion, that only appears like it is going "up". Whereas in reality, the airplane vapor trail is actually level, and traveling toward the camera. How stupid do "they" think "we" are? Everyone (in reality) that saw it said that it looked like a rocket launch. What do you think?

Coffee Break

From Amsterdam to Zimbabwe, this ubiquitous drink has delivered the power of caffeine to the world since it was legalized. The business community has been fueled by coffee breaks, going back to the 1950s. Most would agree that the benefits of drinking coffee outweigh any negative side effects. On the positive side: more energy, decreased hunger, less tired, flushing of the skin (see picture). Possible negatives: anxiety, confusion, irritability, insomnia. One cup of coffee provides about 100 mg of caffeine, which allow me to create early morning blog posts such as this one.