10 thoughts for December 8, 2013

It's official: I'm a lazy bum who prefers to jot down these 10 daily thoughts than write long form.

1. This sold-out ukelele cannot be shipped to Hawai'i.  It's made in China.  That's funny stuff right there.
2. I hope everyone got to watch the Philadelphia - Detroit or the Baltimore - Minnesota games ... six inches of snow.  Looked like they're playing around in the snow...oh wait.
3. 35 bowl games and all but four bowl games are on ESPN; in total, 33 bowl games are controlled by Disney -- this is what a monopoly in sports looks like, folks.  Congress, the DOJ and FCC royally f'd up.  Still not going to buy cable, tho.
4. Oh those lucky Beavers, Oregon State is headed to Hawai'i to play Boise State in the Hawai'i Bowl.  I bet they're hoping for a whole week in Honolulu.  Oregon is headed towards the Alamo Bowl in Texas, against Texas.
5. USC's going to the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl to play against Fresno State -- the same team they open the 2014 season with, on August 30th.  Had FSU lost in the MWC game, it was possible that Utah State and USC would have played in a rematch of the game USC won at home this year.
6. Fact I didn't know: USC mens teams have more national championships than anyone else in the nation.  An info highlighted today after USC men's water polo won its 6th straight championship -- a record in itself.  It's time for a new acronym:  Unrivaled Success in Championships.
7. Monday, the Microsoft Store in-person and online are supposed to have the 8" Dell Venue Pro available for $99.  I was tempted but then realized that it's not big enough to use with Windows.
8. Went outside tonight with the temperature at 22°F / -5.6°C in shorts, with no wind.  It was so comfortable, we went on a 45 minute walk.  We took a short run around the park, too, because the cold air excited the dog.  Did I mention that I was in shorts?  Way more comfortable than the last two days with a strong breeze.  Went out a second time, with the temperature at 20°F / -6.7°C, and without wind it was still very nice.  It's supposed to hit ~ 15°F / -9.4°C in the morning, so I think it'd be fun to go outside in shorts to test it out.
9. Stick with me on this one, even though it might be gross.  This story talks about how lower diversity of gut bacteria has been observed with incidence of colon cancer.  It turns out that one very important means of repopulating your gut bacteria is to eat crap.  Yes, crap as in poop.  Normally people say, "Eat shit and die".  But apparently it's more likely, "Eat shit and live well."  You gotta love the irony of it all.  Of course, repopulating gut bacteria also helps people who cannot recover from undergoing antibiotic treatment or have suffered serious complications resulting from food poisoning.  The typical sign you've lost all your gut bacteria: never-ending runs.
10. This is a bit deep and probably deserves its own post one day.  If everything is purely consequential -- a butterfly flaps its wings, etc. -- then there is but one universe: the consequential one where everything is interrelated and only one outcome is possible.  If everything is purely independent, then there are an infinite number of parallel universes.  If however there are inherent rules to the choices / possibilities that are available to any given molecule or groups of molecules that create an organism -- what you might call genetic inheritance and personality -- then while there could be a googol of parallel universes, there are inherent limits to that total number, and cannot be considered infinite.  So, while I might in some parallel universe conceivably scale Mount Kilimanjaro, it's more likely that my genetic background and personality, etc., would mean that the possibility is out of the question.  And I'm probably not a submariner in another parallel world.  That is to say, I think there are existential rules.