10 thoughts for November 16, 2013

I have a lot of thoughts going through my head, all the time.  Here's my way of getting a bunch of them out of my head, without taking the whole day to write long form.

1. Yesterday property taxes were due (postmark / mail-by date).  I was expecting a jump, but there wasn't any.  Still, because of the structure of taxes in Oregon, our property taxes are easily 4~6x higher than other places, including Hawai'i, and it leads some to believe that Oregon has a high tax burden.  But it isn't true.  A look at the conservative Tax Foundation's metrics for 2010 (latest available data) shows that Oregon (10.0%) is 16th in the nation in total tax burden rates, below #14 Hawai'i (10.1%).  If you calculate that per capita, Oregon is #29 while Hawai'i is #15.
2. I've started compiling some data from my game play with Line Corp's Poko Pang, and it's obvious that there's nothing random about your odds of summoning animals.  Here's an example: 41 summons and 11 of them were the same character, Tytoni.  I've long figured out that there's nothing random about a lot of things in their games, but animal summons in Poko Pang is easily tracked and displayed -- will do so next month or so, after another 20 summons or so.
3. I don't get the point of most animated GIFs.  People will grab video clips then put them through an app that converts them to an animated GIF.  But the result is a file that is larger than the original video clip at the same resolution.  So the people who end up watching the GIF have to wait longer than the original video.  That's pointless, no?
4. Dude, Duke Blue Devils have beaten the Miami Hurricanes in football!  That's quite the turnaround of fortunes.  I mean, Duke has often sat at the bottom of the FBS for the last two decades, and this year they've turned it completely around to take over first place of the ACC Coastal division.
5. PAC-12 officials must be pro-Stanford fans.  This image captures it all.  It was obviously short and should have been called a 4th down, but it was called a first down.  The play was inconsequential as Stanford couldn't move the ball after that play and had to punt.  However, later in the game, everyone including the TV commentators could not believe that the refs refused to call a Stanford player for running into the punter.  Then, they followed up by failing to call an obvious blow to the head area by the tackler on Dion Bailey's interception return -- and here I thought the refs were supposed to focus on blows to the head to prevent concussions.
6. I hope no one forgets how Ed Orgeron and the team trusted that kicker Andre Heidari would hit the game-winning field goal, despite his recent woes.
7. Tonight the Oregon Ducks are huge Trojan fans, I think, now that Oregon is back in the driver's seat of the PAC-12. BUT...there is a very possible scenario where USC could end up in the PAC-12 Championship game and play Oregon.
8. Ed Orgeron may have just won over his critics, to become the permanent head coach of the USC Trojans.  The team is playing as a team and the energy is absolutely amazing.  If they win out, I'm almost certain that AD Pat Haden will have no choice but to make Ed Orgeron's position permanent.
9. I had a conversation with some folks last week, and I pointed out that the 80s was quite unstable with the USSR and the Cold War still going on, barely coming out of the Iran revolutionary coup, and of course the crazy inflation and interest rate spike and recession.  And yet, it had some of the happiest music: Rock Lobster, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and so on.  Modern music isn't quite nearly as aloof and silly as it was back in the 80s.
10. I just can't bring myself to tune in to the Hunger Games thing, just as I couldn't bring myself to catch the Twilight bandwagon.  It might be that I'm getting old and can't deal with teenie-targeted films.  But with the Hunger Games, I just can't let go of the fact that it is a copy of the themes from the Japanese Battle Royale.