Al's Blog-o-Sphere

The only thing weirder than Americans is how the rest of the world perceives us.

Two stories from Germany’s Der Speigel online illustrate this. Both have a really weird way of paying tribute to Barack Obama. Above, in an article about traditional “falla” sculptures in Valencia Spain, they show Obama as a bride, being courted by other world leaders.

The other one is a story about a totally politically-incorrect product that actually came out in Germany – Obama Fingers. Read about it here.

It’s definitely going to change how people look at us, if we go around wearing these things…

The Future Now: Sixth Sense Technology May Change How We Look at the World Forever.

So how DO we decide which toilet paper to buy, without one?

I wonder if these people could tell me how to make our robot follow a colored square with it’s camera?

It kind of reminds me of the jokes that went around – A guy goes into a bar and he sticks his thumb into his ear and his pinky in front of his mouth and starts talking.

“What are you doing” asks a guy at the bar. “Oh, I’m talking on my bionic cell phone implant.”

We won’t get to the punch line here, but it involves the rest room, toilet paper and printing a fax.

Maybe we should choose our toilet paper by whether it’s for ink-jet or laser…

We’re tired. It’s pouring rain, and it’s a long walk to the parking lot from the building we just left, but we couldn’t be happier.

Eleven hours earlier, we had arrived, a bit late, but still in time to hear the National Anthems for the United States and Canada sung at opening ceremonies. It was the third and last day of the FIRST Robotics Fingerlakes Regional Robotics Competition at RIT in Rochester NY.

I had ridden there the previous two days in a school bus, getting up at 6:00 am to meet it. We left one night about 7:30 pm and felt good to get out early on Friday by 5… The extra hour or so of sleep on Saturday felt good, but it wasn’t enough.

It’s hard keeping up with these kids. I’m 55 and my mind says it wants to do the things they do, but my body is always vetoing that idea. My feet are sore, my back aches and my joints complain whenever I work in an awkward position. But I wouldn’t miss it. These kids keep me feeling a little younger than I might if I just stayed home and vegetated. Continue Reading…

And fees.

It seems like every time I turn on the TV or radio, I hear about a new tax proposed by New York Governor David Patterson. We’ve had taxes promised on almost every little thing that Mr. Patterson thinks is a luxury or vice.

He’s promised new taxes on soda, beer, wine, cigars, movie tickets, taxi rides, electronic music and movie downloads, clothing and shoes and now lift tickets at ski areas.

Many of these ‘new’ taxes are just extending sales tax to things that previously were exempt from sales tax, but where do you stop? Pretty soon, everything will be taxed. A sales tax makes no sense if everything you can spend a dime on is taxed. You might as well just make things simple and collect it off the top as income tax. Continue Reading…