Five Thoughts on a Friday – The “Throw it at the Wall” Edition

Happy Friday folks! No, don’t worry, this isn’t an attempt to see “what sticks”. Just being a little silly with the title as I couldn’t come up with a good theme to work off of. Today’s thoughts are all over the map (And I’m pretty sure I’ve used that one before) so I figured I throw a title together, but I didn’t like the sound or implications of calling it the “Thrown Together” edition. So there you have it, that’s how I got today’s title. Ah well, on to the silly!

1. I knew as soon as I saw the headline link that this one would be going into Today’s post. If this doesn’t qualify as “News of the Weird”, I really don’t think I’d know what would. A man, dressed up in a goat costume, hanging out with actual goats in the Utah mountains. In a follow-up article, it turns out he was testing his goat costume for an archery hunt. You’ll notice it doesn’t say if he will be the hunter or the hunted in that follow-up, however.
2. Hot on the heels of a bunch of people getting burns on their feet trying to walk across hot coals (See what I did there?) at a Tony Robbins event, Yahoo posted an article to ask the burning question (see what they did there?) “Why do people walk across hot coals?“. Frankly, I think the answer is pretty simple. They’re idiots! Or as I like to put it… Stupid SHOULD hurt. Or, as Red would prefer to put it….
3. From the “Apparently the car wasn’t clean enough” department…. A New Jersey woman was pulled from the Hackensack River after driving her car into it while leaving the car wash. I love some of the lines in that article though. “After mistakenly hitting the accelerator while exiting the car wash” and “hit the accelerator instead of the brake and launched right into the river, police said”. Now, I don’t know about in New Jersey… but I do know that in automobiles everywhere else, if you hit the brake you aren’t going to exit *anything*… because you won’t be moving!
4. I love this one… Some computer hacker has a sick and twisted sense of humor. I do feel for the poor guy that was probably at work half asleep in the middle of the night at Iran’s Nuclear reactor, only to have the bejeebers scared out of him when computers infected with malware started playing AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” at full volume! I wonder, do you think they could get all the computers to start repeating “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” like HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey? Now THAT would be creepy!
   
5. Last, but certainly not least… I can’t decide if this is pure awesome, pure crazy, or some mix of both. Probably simultaneously both. This past week, Felix Baumgartner completed a skydiving jump from an altitude of 90,000 feet. Or for you and me… 18 miles. They say he hit a top speed of 536 miles per hour. Oh, and he got to that speed within 25 seconds. Again… awesome, meet crazy! But the craziest thing? That wasn’t a new height record. That will come next month if he completes his scheduled jump from 23 miles up! (125,000 feet!)

Okay, that’s five… and I can’t top someone skydiving from 18 miles up in the air. So, I’m just going to close out with a couple of videos. First, in honor Mr. Baumgartner and his jump…

But wait… there’s more! Because I knew when I used it there was no way I could write about it and not use it. So if it wasn’t stuck in your head after that item about Iran’s nuclear reactor, it will be now! How could I not use “Thunderstruck“?

Have a great weekend folks!
-Beer

Five Thoughts on a Friday – The “Re-written Title” Edition

Good morning everyone, and welcome back to yet another installment of Five thoughts. As you can see, there isn’t much of an attempt at humor in the title based on the events of last night. In case you missed it, some nitwit who apparently wasn’t wired right in the brain decided to shoot up a movie theater in Colorado. So, the “Close call” theme I was working off of just didn’t sit right with me as I started writing this.  So, I’ve moved a few items around, taken some out, and come up with what I’ve got. Let’s see how it fares, shall we?

1. When I read articles like this, I can’t help but wonder how they can seem so calm about it. It seems a bobcat in Washington made its way *into* a state prison. I’m guessing they didn’t have much trouble convincing the inmates to stay in their cells once word got out. But this is what really makes me wonder. How can they so nonchalantly say “the animal must have climbed a fence or pushed in through some gap in the fence”? If I cat can climb the outside of the fence, or push a section in, couldn’t an inmate probably do the same thing to get out? Shouldn’t they maybe be a little alarmed about that?
2. In the “Your not real bright, are you?” department. The next time you and your friends decide to be a smart ass and post a picture of you standing on lettuce while working at Burger King on an internet message board, make sure you’ve turned off the GPS data settings on you camera. As you can imagine, since we’re writing about it here, they didn’t. Burger King did however, turn off his employment.
3. Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction. Over the years, I’m sure we’ve all heard fables/stories/anecdotes about business owners and executives who use their positions and companies to purchase and “hide” strange items. Usually its cars, planes, boats, stuff like that (though usually completely unrelated to the business). Now, FBI recently seized some silver coins in a raid on a financial group’s holdings relating to a fraud confession. Seems normal enough though, right? Financial group, silver coins, all makes sense. Except for SpongeBob. Yes, you read that correctly. The FBI seized Silver SpongeBob SquarePants coins. I… have no other words.
4. For the last two we’ll circle back around to the basic theme I was planning for this week’s post. People who got very lucky. I’m not sure if they should go buy a lottery ticket after this, or if they’ve use up their luck completely. Our first example is a scuba diver down near the Bahamas, who was filming a blue marlin being reeled in. The language can be a bit NSFW, considering the shock they got, it’s understandable.
   
5. And of course, not to be outdone…. a Russian man went to gas up his car. Sounds simple, right? Maybe not so much.
   

Okay folks, that’s Five and I’m out of here. There’s beer to be brewed, beer to drink, and… Oh, yeah, walls to paint. Darned home projects. Ah well. Let’s leave with something a little off the beaten path today, since the big Batman movie did open last night…

Have a great weekend folks!
-Beer

Five Thoughts on a Friday – The “Just when you thought…” Edition

Good morning folks and welcome to yet another edition in the continuing saga of Five Thoughts (Too over the top? I was going for overly-dramatic in a lighthearted way). As you may have heard, today is Friday the 13th. To which I say, big deal. It’s still a Friday. So we got that going for us. As for today’s working title? It’s borrowed from a horror movie (for its time) that had a lot of people staying out of the water. Why did I go with that? Because most of this week’s thoughts center on things *in* the water. Let’s dive in, shall we? (See what I did there?)

1. By now you’ve all seen me use the “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke. Well, these guys may need a new wetsuit. I know I surely would! Why? Oh, nothing really just a freaking huge great white shark between them and their boat! Best part (aside from them being okay)? They got video!
   
2. Then again, there are times when being in the boat isn’t very helpful either. If you won’t go get in the water with the fish, the fish will come to you! No, I’m not talking about the shark plopping up on the back of the boat in Jaws. Still, getting hit by a flying carp has got to hurt.
   
3. Okay, so we’ve established we should stay out of the water. But then the fish just jump in the boat. I know! We’ll get fishing nets and catch the fish! If they’re caught in the net, they can’t jump out of the water at us! Right? What’s that? A what is doing what? Oh bother. It appears that a bunch of fish in a net, makes a tasty snack for a whale shark.
4. Okay, yeah. I’m done with being on the water. We’ll just go up in the hills. No water problems there, right? Wrong. It seems that up in Colorado, the temperatures warmed up, the water in the soil melted, and exposed a giant sinkhole, closing a freeway. Except… it wasn’t exactly a sinkhole, “it was determined that the sinkhole is actually a century-old railroad tunnel that collapsed decades ago”. So let me get this straight. Did the civil engineers not survey the area when they built that road? How do you not know there’s an old railroad tunnel right under where you’re building a highway?
5. And lastly, one from the other side of the pond (And that will be the only water reference in this one). It’s completely unrelated, but I have to put it in here because the title of the article made me laugh, and think of my co-blogger. After all, what’s more important than a family feud over… sausage. Yes, you read that correct. It’s a kielbasa war! Berlin gripped by family feud over sausages.

Okay, that’s five and I’ll stop inflicitng horrible jokes and snide remarks on all of you now. After all, I have beer ingredients to go buy, beers to bottle, oh, yeah, and beers that need drinking. All in some sort of random order. Maybe I’ll even see about getting out on the boat. Nah, probably not.I’ll leave the sailing to sailors.

Have a great weekend folks!
-Beer

Five Thoughts on a Friday – The “Wait.. It’s already Friday?” Edition

Good morning folks, and welcome to yet another edition of Five Thoughts. We’re suffering a bit today from what I’m un-affectionately referring to as “Weekus-interruptus”. As in, the July 4th holiday and the extra day off I took on Thursday has totally messed up my schedule for the week, effectively making a Friday feel like a Monday. Not cool. So, With that in mind, let’s see what Beer’s brain has cobbled together for today’s post. Shall we?

1. Staying close to home, I’m not sure about this one. It appears the state of Michigan hopes to cut down on drunk driving by using talking urinal cakes. This makes me think of 2 points. First… How exactly do they plan to use these in the women’s restroom. And second… I’m willing to bet one of these things gives a drunk a heart attack at some point when the urinal starts talking to him. (I guess that *would* succeed in keeping him off the road though….)
2. If you haven’t heard… There was a small ‘technical glitch’ on Wednesday night that caused the entire San Diego fireworks display to go off. All at once. The pictures and video of it are crazy. And of course, there are a lot of people who are either angry, upset, or dissappointed in what happened. Me, I’ve got four words to describe it. Greatest. Grand. Finale. EVER.
   
3. This is a story I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while, and I’m frankly surprised it hasn’t gotten more coverage. I supposed it probably will when we get right down to, and then past the very last minute. Why, because at that point, if you have an affected (infected) machine… the FBI is going to pull the plug on your internet access. And that’s the point where I expect this will become a big story in the news.
4. See, cool stuff like this never happens to me. When I go up into to the attic of the house and pull up floorboards, all I ever get to find is dust, a lack of proper insulation, bad do it yourself wiring jobs that could cause the house to burn down, and other stuff like that. I don’t ever get to find bottles of whiskey that are nearly 100 years old. I don’t know if I would try to drink them though. The fact that they’re that old, and still full is part of what makes it so cool.
5. Hey, Look! The lifeguard who got fired for saving a drowning man? He’s getting offered his old job back! Yes, you read that right. A lifeguard got fired for saving a man’s life because the man was swimming outside of the roped off “swimming area”. Since the lifeguard left his “assinged area” while on duty, he was fired. Now, after making several statements to attempt to justify the firing (Apparently these people don’t know enough to  stop digging when they’re in a hole) the company that fired the lifeguard is prepared to offer him his job back. Isn’t it amazing what a crushing amount of negative publicity can do to change a company’s position on something? The best part? There’s a note in the story that mentions the lifeguard has already stated to the press he wouldn’t accept an offer to return.

Okay folks, that’s five on the sixth and I’m ready to get this day done and over with so I can enjoy the weekend. So, let’s head on out to… a song that’s been stuck in my head since I heard it in concert last weekend. This. Exact. Song.

Have a great weekend folks!
-Beer