Sunday, July 13, 2008

Atomic Time On My Wrist

Hey, boys and girls. Guess who has a new watch????The picture in this post doesn't look exactly like my new watch, but it's close enough. Some cool features of this new watch:

  1. It shows the current date and time simultaneously. So you don't need to press a button in order to find out what day of the month today is. Having to press a button just to see what day of the month it is, was the most frustrating aspect of my life. And now that frustration is gone! Yeah! :)

  2. It automatically sets itself to the atomic clock radio signal coming out of Colorado. So it's time is always correct! And, this also means that the watch is nuclear-powered! I think.

  3. It also includes a world time feature where you can have it show the current time in some other part of the world. I have my watch set to show the time in London, which is the same as UTC. Being able to quickly know the current time UTC is really, really useful. Seriously.

And, of course, it's water resistant to a depth of 50 meters. Which will be helpful for all the times I go driving out on Lake Michigan.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Lost in Time... or Watch Frying

Lately I've felt like I'm lost in time.  I've lost all sense of the precise passage of time.  I'm drifting aimlessly, unstuck, not knowing when I am.



I used to wear my watch continuously, rarely removing it from my wrist.



One evening over a week ago, I washed my hands.  This in itself is not terribly unusual.  Nor is it unusual for such a procedure to get some water on my watch.  It never bothers me when that happens, as my watch was "water resistant", capable of withstanding water pressures up to 50 meters deep.  (Which has been really useful, given how often I go diving.)



After drying my hands, I wondered what the current time was.  Since the room was rather dark, I pressed the watch's backlight button.



This is when, gentle reader, the excitement began.



My watch sparked and lit up like the clock tower in Back to the Future when Marty arranged for it to be struck by lightning, thus powering the De Lorean's flux capacitor.  Only, my watch is not a clock tower.  Or a cool De Lorean time machine car.  And despite being designed for water depths of up to 50 meters, my watch apparently was not designed to keep out water when a button was pressed.  Which makes sense.  Why would anyone want to press any button on a watch when that watch was slightly wet?



So, my watch died.  And I've been lost in time ever since, unstuck, never knowing when I am.



Editor's note: The blog post's title was inspired by The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Orchard Tornado

Check out this tornado!


The picture of this tornado was taken by Lori Mehmen of Orchard, Iowa, on June 10, 2008. Read the whole story here.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Pop or Soda?

Do you drink pop?

Or do you drink soda?

Depends on where you live. If you live in God's Country, you'd drink pop. Probably. At least I do.

The map below maps the various generic names for soft drinks used throughout the country, color-coded by county.


If you plan to travel anywhere this summer, be sure to check this map before leaving so you'll know how to properly request soft drinks wherever you go. Or, for fun, intentionally use the wrong generic name. Bwuahahahahaha!!!!

map from Gene Expression: Soda vs. Pop

NumberWang, The Numbers Game Show

NumberWang is the numbers-based game show that's sweeping the world. Enjoy!