British Safety videos from the 70's

Here are some fear based public safety videos from Britain in the 1970's. All I can say is "Splink"? Aren't acronyms suppose to be made up of words you can remember, not words like "If" for "I". That leaves you thinking "If, umm...if what?"

End Women's Suffrage

In honor of the up coming election here is a video that demonstrates the ignorance of our young people today.

Cowboy Up!

Since the Cowboys near loss to the 0-5 Bangles on Sunday they have been extra sensitive to pressure and criticism from the media. If you bring the circus to town you are going to get some attention; you have an owner that doesn't know how to stay in his owner’s box and comes to the field to coach or console TO for only getting involved in half of the offensive plays during that weeks game. You've brought on two troubled players in Tank Johnson who has been arrested on weapons charges multiple time over the past few years and Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones who has quite the list of legal troubles including; assault, felony vandalism, drug possession, and for the involvement of a shooting at a Las Vegas strip club causing one patron to be paralyzed from the waist down and just yesterday the police were called out to a Dallas hotel where Pacman got into an altercation with one of the body guard Jerry Jones hired to keep him in line. If these are the clowns that you’re bringing in don’t complain when people are peeking in the windows waiting for you to implode. In addition, you have one of the greatest rosters in the NFL right now and you haven’t won a playoff game or had a winning month of October in 12 years. Here’s my suggestion, a one strike out policy for Tank Johnson and Pacman Jones (if the NFL does do this form you), limit the medias access to the locker rooms and training camps. TO can’t complain to anyone if no one is there to ask him any questions and start thinking about monetary penalties aside from what the NFL hands down. This team doesn’t need to lose games in order to self destruct; they’ll do that to themselves from the inside.

Liquid Assets

If you had purchased $1,000 worth of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today

If you had purchased $1,000 worth of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have $33.00 today.

If you had purchased $1,000 worth of shares in Lehman Bros. one year ago, you would have $0.00 today.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, and drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for a recycling refund you would have received $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily and recycle. It's called the 401-Keg

A recent study shows that the average American walks 900 miles a year.

Another study found that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.

That means that, on average, American's get 41 miles to the gallon!

The Oh So Many Uses of Craig's List

It seems that Craig's List can be used for far more than just selling your old dishwasher. One guy used it to hire accomplices for the robbery of an armored car.

It appears to have unfolded this way, according to a Seattle-based NBC affiliate: around 11:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, the robber, wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a blue shirt, and a respirator mask went over to a guard who was overseeing the unloading of cash to the bank from the truck. He sprayed the guard with pepper spray, grabbed his bag of money, and fled the scene.

The robber had previously put out a Craigslist ad for road maintenance workers, promising wages of $28.50 per hour. Recruits were asked to wait near the Bank of America right around the time of the robbery--wearing yellow vests, safety goggles, a respirator mask, and preferably a blue shirt. At least a dozen of them showed up after responding to the Craigslist ad.

"I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour," one of the unwitting decoys, named Mike, said to the NBC station. As it turns out, they were simply placed there to confuse cops who were looking for a guy wearing a virtually identical outfit.

Authorities eventually found the getaway inner tube (a getaway inner tube!) and suspect that accomplices may have picked up the robber in a boat. According to the NBC affiliate, police hope to track him down by figuring out who posted the Craigslist ad in the first place.

The 10 Commandments Guidelines of Concert Behavior

IX. Thou Shalt Not Talk

In his rare moments of lucidity, my father likes to tell a story about a Springsteen show in 1974 during which Bruce brought out a violinist and refused to start Jungleland until the auditorium was completely silent. Can you even imagine that today? See, I'm not even talking about imposing total silence. Order a cocktail, hoot and/or holler and mention to your neighbor that the lead singer has really ballooned up since getting off the horse; it's all good. What I'm talking about are people so engrossed in their conversations that the show becomes background noise, or even worse, a nuisance to be overcome by speaking even louder. For your convenience, I've broken this genus into three common species:

Sons of Herodotus - For these guys (and they're always guys) the show only exists to provide context for their encyclopedic knowledge of the band. I saw Wilco at First Avenue on their inaugural tour and found myself standing near a particularly enthusiastic chap who, for the duration of Wilco's set, chronicled the history of Uncle Tupelo. He even sang his favorite UT songs while Tweedy and the boys tried bravely (albeit unsuccessfully) to sell numbers like Passenger Side to Pavement's disinterested fans.

Scenewiches - These people (50/50 gender split) are here for one or more of the following reasons:

• the band or artist's reputation as a live act
  
• the local weekly has been pimping the band or artist
  
• their first single was prominently featured on The Hills

Subsequently, they show up to hear the new single (of course, they're already "sick of" the first single), to be seen and to reinforce their With It Quotient by dragging a group of friends along. I had a row of Scenewiches behind me at a recent Springsteen show who reacted like Girls In Their Summer Clothes was musical manna, then talked about Missy's ugly divorce throughout New York City Serenade once they decided it was some of Bruce's "older stuff."

Peaches (females) and Herbs (males) - For these folks, the show is a convenient venue to catch up with friends. The show only exists to fill brief gaps while the gang plans bachelorette parties and catches up on gossip. When Donald Fagen stopped in the Twin Cities, I had the pleasure of sitting in front of eight Herbs who spent most of the evening discussing the upcoming softball season and debating whether a certain guy could be trusted to man the hot corner.

Previous Guidelines:
I. Thou Shalt Not Puke
II. Thou Shalt Not Fart
III. Thou Shalt Not Smoke
IV. Thou Shalt Not Take Crappy Pictures With Your Cell Phone
V. Thou Shall Show Up On Time
VI. Thou Shalt Not Request Songs
VII. Thou Shall Respect The Personal Space of Others
IX. Thou Shalt Not Sing Along Unless Explicitly Directed by the Performer(s)

Literal Music Video

The guy that does the singing sounds a lot like Morten Harket (yes, I had to look that name up)

100 Skills Every Man Should Know

Popular Mechanics has devised a list of 100 things that every man should know how to do. You can also take a quiz on some of the skills (I scored an 1100). At the bottom there is a list of 20 tools that every man should have in their garage. I need to go to Home Depot.

Training For Mass Swim Starts

Last month August Filet did a run down of how our last race went and had a perfect description of how a mass swim start is. For those of you that still can't picture the insanity of it all here is a Clif Bar commercial that depicts it.

Acid Rock

In a report released this week by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, it appears that carbon levels effect more then just us land lubbers. Due to absorption of CO2 from the air the acid levels of our oceans is rising, which causes sound to travel further underwater. This spells band news for whales and dolphins who rely on sound for hunting and communication. The prediction from the MBARI is that sound will travel 70% further by the year 2050. Whales would be heavily impacted as their behavior can be disrupted from a mlitary sonar 300 miles away.

Think of it as our world suddenly getting way, way brighter, blindingly bright with no sunglasses anywhere.

Quick chemistry lesson:
pH (short for power of hydrogen) is a base (the opposite of an acid), as acid levels increase the pH goes down. It is a delicate balance as anyone that owns a pool will tell you.