Market Power

Warning Signs of a Stroke

Here are a few signs that you are having a stroke.

Markets in Everything*: Fart Stench Suppressor

This pad is to be worn inside of your underwear. Can be used daily or as needed. Can be used with panty's, briefs and panty hose. Will not be affective with boxer type underwear. Do not use your toilet for disposal. For external use only. End your fear and embarrassment when in public.

That's what the Flat D Flatulence Deodorizer supposedly does.  I'd expect these would be especially good for SBD flatulence, provided the gas isn't too noxious.  Now someone needs to create a muffler for those rips that sound like airplanes landing at JFK or LAX.

*Although he cringes everytime I write this**, kudos to Tyler Cowen for creating the "Markets in Everything Tag."

**Surely the Car Talk fellows would cringe if they read this post and see that I used their "cringing" schtick.

RIP Steve Kordek

Who, you ask?  If you've ever played a modern pinball machine, Mr. Kordek was the inventor.

Not only was Mr. Kordek’s two-flipper game less expensive to produce; it also gave players greater control. For someone concentrating on keeping a chrome-plated ball from dropping into the “drain,” two flippers, one for each hand, were better than six.

“It really was revolutionary, and pretty much everyone else followed suit,” David Silverman, executive director of the National Pinball Museum in Baltimore, said in an interview. “And it’s stayed the standard for 60 years.”

Roger Sharpe, author of “Pinball!” (1977), a history of the industry, agreed.

“But not only did Steve choose to put two flippers down at the bottom of the playfield,” Mr. Sharpe said, “even more importantly he provided direct-current power to those flippers, meaning that a ball skillfully flipped from the bottom of the playfield could actually get to the top, and anywhere in between, with some semblance of accuracy.” Previous games had mostly used less powerful alternating current.

 

The Muppets - Popcorn

 

Is there a Brown M&M's Clause in College Athletic Airplane Travel Contracts?

There's an interesting story in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch about air travel in college athletics.  The main story is that Mizzou plays Okie State today in Stillwater, but the side story is about the two airplane tragedies that have affected the Cowboy athletic programs.

When the Mizzou men's basketball team traveled to Oklahoma State in 2009 and 2011, MU guard Kim English stopped in the lobby of Gallagher-Iba Arena at the memorial for the 10 members of the OSU traveling party who died in a charter plane crash on Jan. 27, 2001, in Colorado.

"It's right there when you walk in. I guess I've picked up something different reading it every time," said English, who traveled Tuesday with the Tigers to Stillwater for today's 6:30 p.m. game against the Cowboys. "I always go over there and read and say a prayer (for the families).

"I just couldn't imagine that. I mean, we fly planes so much."

Unfathomably, OSU suffered a similarly traumatic incident two months ago when women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant Miranda Serna were among the four killed in a single-engine plane crash in Arkansas as it carried them home from a recruiting trip.

The article goes on to mention how the Mizzou athletic department goes about selecting bids for contracts for airplane travel.  Not surprisingly, safety is a major concern.

That got me to thinking about a wonderful story of how one of rock's legendary bands ensured that their shows were set up properly - and safely.  Van Halen's contracts would spell out any and everything that had to occur before they would go on stage.  Not surprisingly, since these contracts covered everything but the kitchen sink, it would be nearly impossible to make sure all the i's and lower-case j's were dotted.  So they came up with a smart way to make sure everything was followed to a tee.    

In their contracts, they buried a rider in that said that the band would be provided with a jar of M&M's with all the brown ones removed.  The thinking was that if the contract were read thoroughly, the M&M's would be provided sans the brown ones.  If that was done properly, so, likely, would everything else.  So rather than checking to see if everything was taken care of, they simply looked for the jar of M&M's.  If there were brown ones inside, they'd have everything checked top-to-bottom

When you think about it, that's a nearly costless way to check for quality control.  So much for the dumb musician stereotype.

Which brings me back to airplane travel.  The last thing any of us says when we go to a concert is "Golly, I might die."  But that thought isn't far from many minds when we board an airplane to hurtle hundreds of miles an hour thousands of feet in the sky.  Safety is one of the utmost concerns.  Even so, are there any examples of brown M&M-type riders that can be quickly checked as a signal that the whole contract has been followed?

The Permalink Problem is Resolved

I have resolved the permalink problem as well as the appearance problem I was having with the blog, so everything should appear normally now.  Thanks to Jen with the Typepad team for the help.

A Day in the Life of the Big XII

This looks 'shopped.

Call of What?

According to my kids, when they have to go to the bathroom and go number two, they are responding to the call of doodie.  Nice.

What Were They Thinking?

EcoKat is just the latest in the long line of the "what the hell were they thinking?" moments in history.  Think Edsel, the Pontiac Aztek, Joe Biden.  This video fits that category.

 

This one too

 

EcoKat Part Deux

John LaPlante on the non-sensical EcoKat, the silly new mascot of Kansas State athletics:

Even more silly than that, Willie (the Wildcat PM) has been joined on campus by "EcoKat," a student dressed in a ridiculous custom of "repurposed materials," brought together in what the Kansas City Star calls all together unfortunate styling." 

According to a K-State website, EcoKat is a "crusader of conservation and fanatic of fluorescents." 

Crusaders? Fanatics? Now we have an admission: people who push fluorescent light bulbs are religious fanatics! Fortunately for football fans, "EcoKat is not affiliated with K-State athletics."

Unfortunately for K-State, EcoKat *is* affiliated with K-State athletics in our minds already.  All KSU fans can hope for is that she gets so busy with her recycling and even more fanatical about her fluorescents, that she forgets her public duties.  

But what type of "camp" has Willie the Wildcat been sent to?  Is it one of those nifty little camps we send our kids to or is it a Soviet-style labor camp.  Given the enviro theme, I'm definitely betting on the latter.  In fact, here's a little video taken at the camp.