Things I Can't Stand #3: Misspellings on public signs

(If you don't know what's wrong with this picture, go here.)

Maybe I am becoming an intellectual snob, but this kills me. I understand if your spelling isn't that good, it's fine. But if you know something will be viewed frequently by the public, run it by someone!!!

What prompted this post was a trip to the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office (which by the way, only takes cash). While in there, I saw a sign instructing people how to fill out a certain form. It read: "Please fill out only the highlighted area's." I just rolled my eyes at the common error, until I started browsing around the place. I saw a bulletin board with "Sheriff's Auctions" It had five or six flyers with repossessed cars on them. Each one carried the heading "Auction of Personel Property"

Anyone else seen some of these offensive signs?

Barack or No Barack, Pt. 1

OK, so I'm voting for Barack come November. I couldn't vote in the primaries in Maryland because I am unaffiliated, but if I could, I would have voted for Barack, also, like so many other people. Even a few of my friends who are republican are loathe to vote for McCain and are going to vote for Obama.

So, why?

Why should you vote for Obama? I recently wrote another piece where I talked about how Obama was special for his ability to see both sides of an issue. Only the presidents who had this quality could bring about tangible change.

But there's another quality about Obama that I think is tops them all, and I just put my finger on it today. It's that he doesn't say anything wrong. Some politicians really just say whatever comes to their minds. Some stumble. But I have yet to find a sound bite of Obama just totally bombing on a question.

Not only is he really eloquent in his responses; we already know this obviously. But he attacks everything with a straightforward and rational argument which is doubly better because Bush couldn't argue with the broad side of a barn.

Everytime Obama speaks, it's like he's a magnet for new voters. Faced with a new issue, his response is usually the right one:
On Clinton staying in the campaign even though a number of Democratic heavyweights have asked her to stop...
"She is a fierce and formidable competitor, and she obviously believes that she would make the best nominee and the best president. I think that she should be able to compete, and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able."

Honestly, what better response could he have given? In just one short quote he was able to compliment Hillary, make her look like a saint, yet toss aside any doubt that she is going to win this race. That is eloquence.

Another quote I like is when he addressed his middle and last names: Hussein and Obama, and how they "sounded" like a terrorist. He said:
"When I ran for the U.S. Senate the assumption was that anyone's name that was close to "Osama" doesn't stand a chance. So if somebody thought that tacking on "Hussein" in there would be a killer, then I think they underestimate the American people and the seriousness of the problems we face."

He could have attacked Fox News or Republicans for spreading lies about his name or anything else. But somehow he got past the trivial and managed to twist it back on the people who said these allegations.

Brilliant.

Unfortunately to be continued...

Current Events

-Nude pictures of Nicolas Sarkozy's wife (president of France) are being auctioned off by Christie's. I know it's France, but imagine if this were happening in the US, and an auction house was auctioning Hillary Clinton nude photos. UGH. Then I read more of the article and realized she was supermodel, which begs the questions why this is an issue in the first place.

-No news is good news for the Democratic candidates. CNN is publishing their family ties and have found some strange relations. Personally, I think after ninth cousins, it gets a bit ridiculous. Even I'm ninth cousins with Obama and Clinton.

-Hillary Clinton, in what seems like a chip off of George Bush, said she misspoke about her coming into Bosnia "under sniper fire." Her direct quote was: "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement." O RLY? She probably just misremembered, or better yet people just misunderstand her.

Back to the Tourney

Look, there's only a few things I can't stand, and one of them is giving me stupid reasons why you picked the teams in the first round that you did. I'm not saying that you shouldn't pick the upset if you want to because they are bound to happen. In fact, in 2001, 41% (13 teams) pulled the upset over the higher seed in the first round. This included a win by Hampton over 2 seed Iowa St., two 13 seeds winning (Kent St. and Indiana St.), and 10 more upsets. This was the most upsets in the first round in the last 8 years. Picking the upsets are more fun, but I also find that winning 100 dollars in my pool is even more fun. Here are some steps that could help you do just this:

1. "Well, three of the four 11 seeds won last year, so I'm gonna have to go with this 11 seed Central-Eastern Michigan-Lansing State University" or some variant of this has been used for years by average bracketpickers. I even heard this used by Mike Golic about ten times in a four minute period on the Mike and Mike show, today. My ears cringed.
Look, there is no correlation between certain lower seeds winning from year to year. Don't believe me? I looked it up and graphed it:

The graph looks confusing, but basically the gist is this: The previous years' upsets have no bearing on the next years' upsets. If anything, there is an opposite correlation. Basically, if there were lot of upsets last year, you better not pick any this year.

2. Want to really pick an upset? Pick Gonzaga. In the past 7 years, they have managed a total of 3 upsets in the first round. But even after that they've never gotten past the Sweet Sixteen. Looks like they lost in the first round this year also.

3. Want to really win your pool? Don't pick any upsets. Don't pick the school that you went to, your friend went to, are in now, is in your state, or most of the people in the pool picked. Pick 148 for your final tiebreaker score (the average composite score of the last 7 years). Pick 151 for the final score if you're a stat expert and don't like outliers when compiling your average (yeah, Maryland-Indiana was the worst championship game in the past 10 years). Know that correlation doesn't mean causation. That means, if you're seeing a pattern and you're playing off it, it will fail you in the end. You can make a correlation between anything...just like this:

Seems like the more profanity in music nowadays is strongly correlated to the number of US Military Deaths in Iraq! That must be what's causing it! No, not even close...

4. The only teams that can be counted on for points every year in the tournament are the teams that have consistent tournament experience, good coaching, and a complete and solid team.
Recently, this list has been dwindled down to: UNC, Duke, Florida (for some reason they came up short this year...), UConn, and UCLA. A couple more are second-tier teams that hang out in the top 25 every year, those being: Kentucky, Arizona, Memphis, Michigan State, Stanford, Texas, Georgetown, Kansas, and the Oklahoma public university system. These can be counted on to round out your sweet sixteen. Good luck picking between them.

5. Think of upsets in cost effective terms. Purely, if you were to pick that 14 over 3 upset, more than likely that 14 seed will lose in the next round. That means you're giving up about 6 points that the 3 seed would likely win for you(2 for the second round, and 4 for the third round) just to get that one point for the upset. That 3 seed has a higher probability of going further and getting more points for you and giving up those points to pick an upset are just not worth it.

Things I Can't Stand #2: Unnecessary Bottle Openers

Unless your bottle openers are confined to your kitchen drawer, you are walking the fine line between being a social drinker and being a drunk.

Ever seen those belts (or belt buckles) or sandals with bottle openers? It's kind of cool, but do you really need a bottle opener that urgently? Like, was some alcoholic walking to class one day with a beer in his backpack and thought "ah damn, I can't believe I left the bottle opener at home."?

If you're thinking, "What about keychains? Everyone has those." Bottle opener keychains are only acceptable if you're in college. This is only due to the fact that college drinking does not usually occur within sight of a kitchen drawer. If you think they're acceptable at all ages, think about this: Remember the scene in Office Space where Peter offers his neighbor Lawrence a bottle opener and he pulls out his own? If not, skip to 0:50:

He does this for a reason. It's to emphasize his role in this movie as a huge redneck. It matches perfectly with his fu manchu and mullet. Do you really want to be like that guy?

Murphy's Law

Car trouble the day before you have to get back to school for spring break? Yes, please. Not only is it 1 am, the day of the first week back from spring break, but I'm also stuck in a shopping center parking lot waiting for a AAA guy to come rescue my car. Great!

Murphy's Law always seems to creep up in everyone's life at the wrong time. However, Murphy's Law can't explain everything. We need to add a corollary. It's called the embarrassing story corollary to Muphy's Law. Not only will something go wrong when you allow it too, but you'll also get some embarrassing story out of it. Case in point: Your new (read: used) car will break down on the way back down to college at 1am leaving you no option but to call AAA to go the extra 30 miles left. Unfortunately, you don't know where you are either. You have to tell the AAA lady where you are of course so the tow truck can get you. Your only landmarks? Sexy Nails, 96 Buffet, and Kim's Wig Shop. Nice. Let's see her Mapquest that.


Anybody have any great stories? Leave comments.