This video is absolutely amazing. I laugh each time I watch it.
Is that not the greatest thing you've ever seen? And it's true! Well, sorta. The beauty of the satire brings tears to my eyes. Surely the world could be a better place if MadTV ran it.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Credit scores - what's the point?
So about a year and a half ago, I decided to check out my credit score. Nowadays it is easy and free to check out your credit report at http://www.annualcreditreport.com, thanks to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, but the credit score (that magic number that is supposed to represent your entire history of credit use, but in actuality is probably just the result of some chimpanzee throwing a bunch of dice into the air, then typing the result of his throw into a computer) must usually be purchased. (As a side note, when applying for a loan you might be able to get a copy of the score if you ask nicely. And if you are denied the loan, you definitely are entitled to your score, plus you have the right to find out exactly why you were denied.)
Anyway, I checked my score by signing up for a free 30 day trial membership of some Experian product. I got my free score, then canceled the membership that day. Easy peasy.
A few days ago, I decided to check my score again. I figured a while had passed, I'd opened and closed a few accounts, let's see what's changed. I went and signed up for the same trial and got my free report and score. To my chagrin, the score was exactly the same as it was a year and a half ago. The report reflected all of my credit activity since that time, but the end "score" was exactly the same.
I'm convinced of the chimps.
DISCLAIMER: As a side note, the score Experian gave me was their proprietary PLUS score, not precisely the FICO score. The latter is the standard score used by most lenders. So Fair Isaac (of FICO fame) may not use chimpanzee's for their score calculation. There are dozens of other mammals that are just as capable.
Anyway, I checked my score by signing up for a free 30 day trial membership of some Experian product. I got my free score, then canceled the membership that day. Easy peasy.
A few days ago, I decided to check my score again. I figured a while had passed, I'd opened and closed a few accounts, let's see what's changed. I went and signed up for the same trial and got my free report and score. To my chagrin, the score was exactly the same as it was a year and a half ago. The report reflected all of my credit activity since that time, but the end "score" was exactly the same.
I'm convinced of the chimps.
DISCLAIMER: As a side note, the score Experian gave me was their proprietary PLUS score, not precisely the FICO score. The latter is the standard score used by most lenders. So Fair Isaac (of FICO fame) may not use chimpanzee's for their score calculation. There are dozens of other mammals that are just as capable.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Dear oh Deer
So yesterday as I moseyed on home from campus, I happened upon this gal and her fawn (whom I sadly did not photograph). I was reminded of an awesome exchange in the Daily Universe's Readers Forum. (In the first link, the relevant letter is at the bottom of the page; in the second, it's the 4th one down.) It was a great experience. I really treasure it.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Homemade bread
I would like to publicly thank my home teachers for their visit today. We enjoyed their message immensely. Then, to top it all off, Stephen made us bread. It was magically delicious.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
USPS: When will they learn?
*begin rant*
Time to vent some steam about the post office. Just when I think they're getting their act together, they go and trample on my good faith like a seven year old jumping up and down on a water bed while wearing daddy's golf spikes. What brings forth this angst? you may wonder. Well wonder no more, for I now will chronicle the ineptitude of the United States Postal Service.
It was a quiet day in February. Like most days, I checked the mail. To my surprise, there was a change of address form in the mailbox. Further was my surprise when I saw that the address to be changed was ours. Instead of living at 159 North Unit B (we live in the basement, and I felt weird calling it Apartment B, since there is no apartment A, and #B just jives wrong. Hence, I always called it Unit B), we were now to be 157 North. Now this was not a "notice of address change," nor did it bear resemble to anything official from the post office. It was the standard change of address form you use when you want your mail (hopefully, possibly) forwarded to a new address. There was no note of explanation, nothing even suggesting it came from anyone with any kind of actual say in the matter. We asked our landlord (the amazing Kurt Peterson) if he or his wife had put the form in our box. He said they had not, but mentioned that the town of Provo was changing all unit B's to individual numbers. However, he had just filled out the form with the town that day, and was surprised that we already had received the form. He said that we should just wait to hear from the post office about the matter. I heartily agreed. I mean, how many people would just blindly fill out the remaining fields of some half-completed change of address form they found randomly one day in their mailbox? My guess is few.
Life went on as usual. We stuck the form on our fridge (using magnets from www.kjmagnetics.com. Best magnets ever), and quickly forgot it. Several weeks later, Megan got a knock on the door. It was the postperson (the same one who never picks up our outgoing mail. I guess it's too hard to see or something. We always have to put it in our landlord's outgoing slot if we really want our mail to get picked up. Or chase him down the street, when he doesn't bother to check either.). He then proceeded to speak in a condescending manner concerning the aforementioned change of address form, asking things like "Couldn't you figure it out?" and saying things like "It's easy. Look I'll show you." You know, completely missing the fact that we hadn't received any kind of official info from them that our address needed to change. Megan asked why it had to be changed, and the postperson relayed some story about the police or something couldn't find an address that had a unit B in it. This is either a boldfaced lie, or a sad testimony to the incompetence of some people. It's not that hard people, especially considering that right now we don't have any kind of number on our house at all. Our landlord has the 159, but we have nothing. At least before, if you found the house and had a functioning brain stem, you could easily infer that Unit B meant "the basement." Now, genuine confusion could result (well, I see 159, and 149, but where's 157?), even for mildly intelligent individuals. I hope we don't require any emergency assistance any time soon. At least until we move. Or while we're moving. In fact, as long as it's not while I'm at home.
But I digress. In the end we filled out the form and placed it in our own outgoing box (if they want it, then they're going to have to do their job correctly at least once). After a few days, it was gone. However, I wasn't about to go and change all of our credit cards, bank accounts, etc etc, since we're moving to Louisiana in August. It just wouldn't be worth the hassle, since we're going to do it all over again in a few months. Since we still lived in the same physical place, and we filled out the change of address form, our mail would still get here. And it did. Until today.
Earlier this week, I ordered a surprise for Megan from Amazon (I'll refrain from posting the contents of this surprise, as it is still a surprise. Sadly, though, it should no longer be...). Everything was hunky dory, until I checked the tracking number again today (I was expecting delivery today or Monday) only to find the following unfortunate words: "Your item was undeliverable as addressed at 8:45 AM on May 17, 2008 in PROVO, UT 84606. It is being returned if appropriate information is available." Why? Only the USPS gods could possibly know. And of course it is Saturday, and I didn't find this out until late in the afternoon, so of course no one was at the office to figure out what's up. The package clearly made it to the local post office this morning, then was almost immediately deemed undeliverable, when they KNOW where we live, we have duly forwarded (as per their instructions) our mail, and it requires no extra effort than it would have had we had the "correct" address on the package to just deliver the thing here. And why would they make the silly decision to return the package to its sender? The whole thing boggles the mind. I would like to return with good news on Monday, but my faith has been shattered, and to hope for a positive outcome is more than I can do at this point.
*end rant*
In some better news, I found a nice place to paintball today.
Time to vent some steam about the post office. Just when I think they're getting their act together, they go and trample on my good faith like a seven year old jumping up and down on a water bed while wearing daddy's golf spikes. What brings forth this angst? you may wonder. Well wonder no more, for I now will chronicle the ineptitude of the United States Postal Service.
It was a quiet day in February. Like most days, I checked the mail. To my surprise, there was a change of address form in the mailbox. Further was my surprise when I saw that the address to be changed was ours. Instead of living at 159 North Unit B (we live in the basement, and I felt weird calling it Apartment B, since there is no apartment A, and #B just jives wrong. Hence, I always called it Unit B), we were now to be 157 North. Now this was not a "notice of address change," nor did it bear resemble to anything official from the post office. It was the standard change of address form you use when you want your mail (hopefully, possibly) forwarded to a new address. There was no note of explanation, nothing even suggesting it came from anyone with any kind of actual say in the matter. We asked our landlord (the amazing Kurt Peterson) if he or his wife had put the form in our box. He said they had not, but mentioned that the town of Provo was changing all unit B's to individual numbers. However, he had just filled out the form with the town that day, and was surprised that we already had received the form. He said that we should just wait to hear from the post office about the matter. I heartily agreed. I mean, how many people would just blindly fill out the remaining fields of some half-completed change of address form they found randomly one day in their mailbox? My guess is few.
Life went on as usual. We stuck the form on our fridge (using magnets from www.kjmagnetics.com. Best magnets ever), and quickly forgot it. Several weeks later, Megan got a knock on the door. It was the postperson (the same one who never picks up our outgoing mail. I guess it's too hard to see or something. We always have to put it in our landlord's outgoing slot if we really want our mail to get picked up. Or chase him down the street, when he doesn't bother to check either.). He then proceeded to speak in a condescending manner concerning the aforementioned change of address form, asking things like "Couldn't you figure it out?" and saying things like "It's easy. Look I'll show you." You know, completely missing the fact that we hadn't received any kind of official info from them that our address needed to change. Megan asked why it had to be changed, and the postperson relayed some story about the police or something couldn't find an address that had a unit B in it. This is either a boldfaced lie, or a sad testimony to the incompetence of some people. It's not that hard people, especially considering that right now we don't have any kind of number on our house at all. Our landlord has the 159, but we have nothing. At least before, if you found the house and had a functioning brain stem, you could easily infer that Unit B meant "the basement." Now, genuine confusion could result (well, I see 159, and 149, but where's 157?), even for mildly intelligent individuals. I hope we don't require any emergency assistance any time soon. At least until we move. Or while we're moving. In fact, as long as it's not while I'm at home.
But I digress. In the end we filled out the form and placed it in our own outgoing box (if they want it, then they're going to have to do their job correctly at least once). After a few days, it was gone. However, I wasn't about to go and change all of our credit cards, bank accounts, etc etc, since we're moving to Louisiana in August. It just wouldn't be worth the hassle, since we're going to do it all over again in a few months. Since we still lived in the same physical place, and we filled out the change of address form, our mail would still get here. And it did. Until today.
Earlier this week, I ordered a surprise for Megan from Amazon (I'll refrain from posting the contents of this surprise, as it is still a surprise. Sadly, though, it should no longer be...). Everything was hunky dory, until I checked the tracking number again today (I was expecting delivery today or Monday) only to find the following unfortunate words: "Your item was undeliverable as addressed at 8:45 AM on May 17, 2008 in PROVO, UT 84606. It is being returned if appropriate information is available." Why? Only the USPS gods could possibly know. And of course it is Saturday, and I didn't find this out until late in the afternoon, so of course no one was at the office to figure out what's up. The package clearly made it to the local post office this morning, then was almost immediately deemed undeliverable, when they KNOW where we live, we have duly forwarded (as per their instructions) our mail, and it requires no extra effort than it would have had we had the "correct" address on the package to just deliver the thing here. And why would they make the silly decision to return the package to its sender? The whole thing boggles the mind. I would like to return with good news on Monday, but my faith has been shattered, and to hope for a positive outcome is more than I can do at this point.
*end rant*
In some better news, I found a nice place to paintball today.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Water movement
Currently, the underground lab of the Eyring Science Center is under major construction. It was scheduled to be done yesterday, so we can safely assume completion by December. As part of the construction, the building distilled water has been shut off down there. Last semester, I was mostly writing my thesis, so I wasn't affected by the lack of water. Now, however, I am back at the research grindstone (I will probably detail what I do in a later, far more boring post). In short, I can do little without access to a source of distilled water. So I spent this afternoon trying to get a 15 gallon container filled with distilled water up into the utility room above my lab. It was insane amounts of fun. There is a 1 ton pulley system that is used to haul things up there, and I felt very cool using it for the far less than one ton jug of water (which I had only filled half way at the chemistry supply room. For FREE! Hooray! Free!). It got up there in the end, but then I realized that once I started siphoning the water through, I wouldn't be able to stop it. So now the jug sits alone, closed, and unused. I pity it's sad state, but hope that it will soon fulfill the measure of it's creation.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Why I'm here
Why the blog? Basically, I want to keep a journal. But I'm really bad at it. So I'm going to try something new.
Right now, I am putting off studying for my anatomy quiz on the lower muscles. I never dreamed I could put so much effort into a non-physics course. This anatomical experience has certainly been different from what I'm used to. The massive amount of memorization boggles my mind. I salute with greater gusto those who become surgeons and doctors. And I giggle when I realize we "only" learn 1500 or so anatomical parts in this course. Unbelievable. For the last several nights, I have dreamed about anatomy. It's a vicious cycle.
Right now, I am putting off studying for my anatomy quiz on the lower muscles. I never dreamed I could put so much effort into a non-physics course. This anatomical experience has certainly been different from what I'm used to. The massive amount of memorization boggles my mind. I salute with greater gusto those who become surgeons and doctors. And I giggle when I realize we "only" learn 1500 or so anatomical parts in this course. Unbelievable. For the last several nights, I have dreamed about anatomy. It's a vicious cycle.
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