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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Two True American Heroes



And don't forget to sign the Bring Back Crystal Pepsi petition. Do it for the children if nothing else.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Untitled Thing Episode Four


In this episode:

- Rod Blagojevich
- Aiko The Robot
- Show prep for the final episode of The Other Andy Show
- A new segment called Quick Things

Intro music: "Lounge Act" by Nirvana
Ending music: "Risingson" by: Massive Attack

Click here to download the episode

Friday, November 21, 2008

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Twitter: So Not Gay



andyeinstein Just bought Wall E on Blu Ray. Can't wait to see the 1080 goodness. from web

If you were a member of Twitter, and more importantly one of my followers on Twitter, you would have just received that message.

But, Andy, what is Twitter? It must be pretty awesome if you are involved in it.
You are correct. It is awesome. Twitter is a micro-blogging
service that allows users to send and read other users' updates which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates can be found on a user's profile page, sent to your mobile phone via text message, or through an application like Twitteriffic which can be downloaded to your computer via something called the Internet. The primary purpose of each twitter update is to answer the question: What are you doing?

Let's observe what some of my fellow twitter users are up to right now:


lilypants hold theeeeese nuuuuuuts
ginatufano showing off my clean (still) inbox...yup it is.
yngwii 非常讨厌深圳这个鬼地方!
spaulds1 Correction: Tar Heels playing in Chapel Hill....unfortunately I am in Charlotte.......... :(


Now you get it. If you were friends with any of these people you would be endlessly intrigued by the information above.

But, Andy, aren't these updates kind of pointless and...well, isn't twitter kind of gay?

That is a very immature attitude! Twitter is neither gay nor ghey. Did you even read yngwii's post above? Listen, the point of this blog entry is thus: Go to Twitter.com, sign up, become my follower.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

My Youtube Shame (and then a good video) Part I

We've all had nights where we've been caught up watching Youtube videos until four A.M., and had to drag ourselves into work the next day on just ninety minutes of sleep. Oh, you haven't? I have. Several times. Most of the videos I have no problem sharing with friends, but there are a few I should probably keep to myself.

Take for example the Ram It video. I've watched this video at least fifty times, and can say without a doubt it is the gayest video on the Interwebs. The problems are many fold. First, they say "ram it" way too many times for comfort. Then if you actually listen to the words you hear things like "I come from the end, lookin' for the sack. I don't stop comin' till I put 'em on their back." and the guy confessing that he "don't want Dick running over me." Also, does anybody really find those cheerleaders with their big 80's hair attractive? I thought not.



Okay, as an apology for subjecting you to that, please also enjoy this pwning of Sarah Palin.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Don't Do Fat. Not Even Once.


Back in March I came up with a way to motivate myself to exercise more and get in shape. Angie and I came up with some fitness goals involving weight, size, and endurance. We agreed on my 30th birthday as the deadline to meet these goals. The bet was if I failed I would take Angie to Disney World. If I won, I told her she would have to do some things she wouldn't normally do. She said no to that, so I decided to cross that bridge when and if I came to it.

So my training began. I loaded up my mp3 player with music from the Rocky soundtrack, and hit the streets. I started out with leisurely strolls around the neighborhood and Washington Park and even threw in some light jogging. I didn't concern myself with the weight goal just yet because I felt I could reach that in about eight to ten months with dedicated dieting.

As the weather got warmer I started hitting the gym. It was time to start my strength training anyway. I showed up at the gym with infrequent regularity. Good for a week, skip a week. Needless to say this hampered my progress, especially since that skip a week turned into skip two weeks, go one day, skip another week.

One day in August, after nearly a month of wallowing in my own fat, I decided to return to the gym with renewed vigor. That's when I got the shin splints. I didn't know they were the shin splints at the time, I just knew every step I took sent fiery agony from my foot up to my knee. It was my doctor who broke the news. The following is a dramatization of that fateful conversation:

Me: Give it to me straight, doc. I'm a man. I can take it.

Doctor Hendricks: (rolling his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other) You're too fat, fatty. When fatso's like you get on a tread and start running it creates too much stress on your fat legs. You have a case of the shin splints...the fat person version.

Me: Is it serious? Will I live?

DH: Oh, you'll live (under his breath) unless a heart attack gets ya. I recommend staying off that treadmill for six weeks, otherwise you could develop a stress fracture. And then you'll be on crutches, fatty. If you need to do some cardio, and - let's face it -you do, stick to a stationary bike. Preferably one that your grossly obese carcass won't break as soon as you sit on it. (Puts cigar out on his arm)

So I tried the stationary bike a couple of times, and it was boring. Much more boring than the treadmill, which is the most boring thing in the universe. Feeling dejected and sorry for myself, I quit going to the gym all together.

Fast forward two months later to this past Saturday. I make my triumphant return to the gym. I hit that tread with reckless abandon, and feel great. I repeat the same thing on Sunday. I'm feeling so good I went back again tonight, Monday, and I lasted about ten minutes. The shin splints are back with a vengeance.

So here is the situation. I need to get on a treadmill, because I'm fat. But, since I'm fat, I shouldn't do the treadmill. The moral of the story? Fat. Not even once.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

My Conversation With The John Lennon Bot

These things never go well, but about once a year I have a conversation with the chat bot programmed after my favorite singer/songwriter. Here's how it went this year.

Hey, this is John speaking (with his fingers). What's your first name?

Andy

Hey,Andy,You know my name,look up the number.

Yeah. That wasn't one of your best songs.

I never noted his nose until about six months ago.

I see they still let you do drugs in...wherever you are.

You see they still let i do drugs in wherever i are?

Why are you mocking me? I'm a big fan.

Reductionism.


What does that mean?

Nothing really. I said it just to please you.

So what have you been up to lately?

I've no idea. Perhaps I should ask you.

If I knew I wouldn't have asked.

Try it.

What?

Try it. I have a book.

You ever been rick rolled?

No I don't think I have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI

http:%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch?v%3DYu_moia-oVI


Whatever.

Are you saying you don't care about it?


Yes.

Okay.

Bye.

Yeah bye.

Jerk

Are you a vegetarian?

---

I wonder if that's what he was really like.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Nic's Pics



All photos were taken by my friend Bryan.

The Tale Of Brave Sir Nicolas


Friday: Angie's mom calls me regarding something in her backyard underneath the lawn mower. I can hear her dogs going nuts in the background. She thinks maybe it's some kind of lizard or snake. We head over to her place and discover it's a cat. It looks half starved and can't walk, my guess is it was hit by a car and has dragged itself to this point. I gently pulled on his scruff, and the skin stayed sticking out which is a sign of dehydration. We take it to the Emergency Animal Clinic. At the clinic they run some blood work, and give the cat a once over. It tests negative for Feline Leukemia, and kidney and liver enzymes are normal. They still need to run x-rays as the cat has an obvious and serious injury to or near its rear left leg. They say he was definitely hit by a car. We leave the cat there over night with a promise from the staff that we will be updated on the cat's condition.

Saturday: After an early morning call from the clinic we learn that the cat, which we have since dubbed Sir Nicolas, has a broken pelvis and a broken leg. We arrive at the clinic shortly thereafter.

Before consultation, they let us see Nic. He is already a completely different cat than the scared, scrawny thing we left last night. He shows a very friendly and playful disposition, nipping our fingers and trying to hold our hands down so he can give them a serious licking. It is Nic's opinion that no amount of petting is too much for him, and he purrs constantly.

The doctor shows us the x-ray of Nic's leg. I don't know anything about reading x-rays, but I do know that your leg shouldn't be in about fifty different pieces. The only viable option is to amputate the leg, a procedure that will cost anywhere from one to two thousand dollars. A big thank you to Angie's mom goes here for covering the things they did charge us for.

At this point I'm thinking euthanasia is going to be the only course of action we can take since there was no way we could pay for the surgery, but the vet came up with a solution. She offered to perform the amputation for free on her own time (with a good old fashion neutering for good measure) if we agreed to foster Nic to recovery until the Animal Protective League can take him in.

There were a couple of surprises during and after the surgery. When the leg was removed yellow pus oozed out the wound. There was so much of it the vet told us that based on the amount of pus she would guess that Nic had been hit by the car around 7 - 10 days ago, and that he was lucky to be alive.

Sadly, she spoke too soon. A half hour after his surgery Sir Nicolas died. His heart stopped...Luckily they were able to revive him. Most likely he passed a blood clot, but they were able to get him ticking again by flushing his system with some kind of medication. They tell us he should be fine, and can go home on Sunday.

Sunday: The vet releases Sir Nicolas into our care. She gave us instructions for his pain meds and antibiotic, and he has an appointment to see our regular vet on 10/25. Until then he is confined to crate so his hip can mend properly. He seems to be okay with his new surroundings, and eats like a pig whenever we feed him.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Don't Know Why

Just felt like posting this. No particular reason. Ahem.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Face It. People With Red Hair Are Better Than You.


Last night I was watching the Neanderthal Code on Nat Geo, and the narrator mentioned that some Neanderthals had red hair. This is a fairly new discovery considering as early as fifty years ago we believed our genetic cousins were mere ape men who may or may not have walked upright.

So this got me to thinking about the red head's (ginger's) place in the world. Like Neanderthals, gingers were once the object of scorn and prejudice by the rest of the world. And by rest of the world I mean Religious People. Red hair was once thought to be a mark of a beastly sexual desire and moral degeneration. Yeah, they considered that a bad thing. Beastly. Red hair and green eyes were thought to be the sign of a witch, a werewolf or a vampire during the Middle Ages. Maybe all three at once.

Of course this was during civilization's low point, and some 1,500 years in the past. Today we know that red hair is caused by the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), a protein located on the 16 chromosome. Pigments are also involved, causing people like me to yell at random strangers, "Hey, Darkie, think you got enough eumelanin there? Why don't you try getting some more pheomelanin? Ya jerk!"

Ginger's are here to stay like it or not. We may be sex-crazed vampire maniacs, but we are people too. Also, according to one expert (me) we smell better.

Friday, September 12, 2008

So Long TIF


For silly legal reasons my friend Bryan and I had to end our beloved podcast. I've removed the link from this blog, and the show's website will be taken down within the next few hours. Plans for a new podcast are already underway.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Fun At The Fair And A couple Thoughts
























I usually avoid the state fair like the plague. The hot temperatures and crowds usually don't add up to a good time in my book. This year, however, the mild temps and hearing about the food ad nauseum drove me out north side to partake in some of the fair time delicacies.

My list of foods conquered:

tandoori chicken (which was so good I will be going to the ethnic festival in a couple of weeks to get more), yaki mandu, grilled corn w/ parmesean garlic seasoning (sorry, Jason), a cheese brat from midstate meats, elephant ear, turkey leg, alligator on a stick, mozzerella sticks, and cotton candy.

All that for under forty bucks. It makes me want to write a book, The All Fair Food Diet, that caters towards underweight people, who I feel are over looked by the diet industry.

Some Random Thoughts:

- While walking on my break last Friday I was informed by a homeless person that, "Abe Lincoln's ghost is a fucking whore." First off, not true. I think Abe's ghost is loyal to the ghost of Mary Todd. Second, if we go by society's double standard, men can not be whores no matter how much they sleep around. And finally, even if Abe's ghost was a whore I doubt he would be sleeping with a homeless man no matter how much the homeless man resembled Fredrick Douglas.

- Speaking of ghosts, I had an interesting conversation with a couple coworkers who think I am crazy for not believing in ghosts. That's fine. To each his own. One of them told me of a haunted house in Equality, Illinois commonly known as the Old Slave House. According to the coworker many have tried to spend the night at this house, but none have succeeded. Even worse; three marines tried to sleep there with horrific results. One died (of fright I'm guessing), one is now a mute, and the third has never been seen since that night.

So, being the cynical bastard I am, I went home and did a little research on the Old Slave House. I could find nothing about these three marines, even though I was assured it had been documented in local newspapers, and was not some type of bullshit local myth. I found that at least one person, a reporter from Harrisburg, IL (yeah, Harrisburg) was able to spend an entire night in the house. I also found an article about three Indiana men who were arrested for trespassing and vandalism when they were found in the house drinking beer and watching TV. Real fucking haunted.

Credit to my friend Bryan for the Sky Lift photo.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

One criticism I often hear is that it is extraordinarily arrogant of atheists to not believe in a higher power. To think that humans are the end-all, be-all of the universe. I for one do not think humans are significant at all in the grand scheme of the cosmos. I hope this video helps put things in perspective.

Monday, July 14, 2008

The Future's so Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.


You learn something new everyday, and today I learned that something is pulling our galaxy, along with tens of thousands of other galaxies, toward itself at roughly 14 million miles per hour. What that something is, we don't know. We just know it's some type of giant mass named 'The Great Attractor" pulling us towards it. I learned this over the weekend. Astronomers have known it for years, the bastards.

This got me to thinking. At 14 million mph how long until we get there? Given that the Great Attractor is 250 million light years from our Solar System (how is that possible if the universe is only 6000?), we should arrive in, oh, 12.5 billion years or so. Except we won't be around when this happens, and I don't mean just you and I. The Earth won't be around either. In 5 billion years the Sun will become a Red Giant and its radius will be large enough to envelop the Earth.

Do not despair. There is some other cool stuff that will happen way before that. The galaxy known as Andromeda is still on a collision course with the Milky Way. When that happens (only 2.5 billion years from now) the two galaxies are expected to merge and form one larger galaxy. It is possible there will still be humans on Earth to witness this, and there is a small chance that one of Andromeda's planets will have intelligent life willing to sell us oil for cheap.

In the not so distant future, Smith's Cloud is expected to merge with the Milky Way in only 20 to 40 million years at a point in the Perseus Arm. The impact is expected to produce a burst of star formations, which should be pretty neat to see.

Okay, so what are some cool things you can expect to be alive to see? Well, the movie Religulous is out this fall. Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB8fPJ6zds8. Also, The Dark Knight is out this Friday. That should be pretty cool.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

A New Way To Celebrate












I think fireworks are overrated which means I tend to stay indoors on the 4th of July. Actually, as an avid indoorsman, I would stay inside anyway, but the point is if you've seen one fireworks display you've seen them all. That's why I am endorsing switching from fireworks to the hot dog eating contest in Coney Island as our new way of celebrating our independence.

This year American Joey Chestnut won for the second year in a row, defeating Japan's Takeru Kobayashi who had won the contest six straight times prior to last year. The two tied at fifty-nine hot dogs after ten minutes, and then faced off in a five hot dog sudden death. Sudden death. You can't get that with fireworks.

What's more American;trying to see how many dogs you can scarf in ten minutes or setting off fire works? That's an easy one. Even china has fire works diplays, but have they ever had one of their citizens eat over sixty hotdogs in almost the time it will take me to write this post? I don't think so.

So what do you say? How 'bout next year we stay indoors, and instead of lighting off boring old analog fireworks we turn on our digital TVs and root our country on (unless you were for Kobayashi like me) in the Super Bowl of competitive eating. I think the Founding Fathers would have wanted it that way.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Fun With Young Earth Creationists

Well, I didn't mean to post another one of my back and forths from the sj-r website so soon, but that was just the way the cookie crumbled this time. Today I bring you the words of July 3, not the date but the poster. His first post caught my attention:

To Chief Illiniwek: A young earth is quite easy to defend, both Biblically and scientifically. The old age of the earth, according to some, has changed regularly over the course of my 70 years, from a supposed few million years to, now, several billion years. Just don't know where all those years are coming from.

Okay, he wasn't talking to me, but I'm an Internet Loudmouth so I forced my way in to the conversation:

July 3, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and the universe even older. To say the Earth was created in one week 6,000 years ago means you are wrong by a factor of about one million. It's like believing the grand canyon is the same width as your finger.

Yet you claim you know the Earth is only 6000 because you've spent your life studying one book written by a bunch of people who had never even heard of the scientific method? This is enough to deny an old earth and older universe? If so you must also deny: weak nuclear force, potassium-argon dating, argon-argon dating, carbon-14 dating, rubidium-strontium dating, samarium-neodymium dating, dendrochronology, ice cores, varves (fresh sediment layers), coral layers, thermoluminescence, and even gravity. Yeah, gravity. But why worry? Gravity is just a theory. Right?

I tried to keep it simple. State the facts about the age of the Earth and Universe, give a dramatic example about how far off the young earthers are, and give some examples of some of the ways we can test and confirm the numbers I gave. End of story, or so I thought, but July 3 decided to fight science with pseudo-science!!! He writes:

No doubt the best evidence for a young earth is the Bible - God was the only eye witness to its origin. Beyond that there are many evidences. The presence of measurable Carbon 14 in coal and diamonds - C14 only measures in the thousands of years, not millions. The existence of short term comments, which would have burnt up long ago if the solar system was billions of years old. There is not enough mud on the sea floor, or enough sodium in the ocean for the earth to be billions of years old. The earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast for it to have been decaying at the present rate for billions of years. Radioactive decay rate methods are inconsistent and unreliable, and give long dates only if there is the assumption of long ages.

You've probably guessed my reaction. I curled into the fetal position and wept as my entire world view based on facts and reason had just been shattered with a few keystrokes. But I had to be true to myself, and did something young earth creationists never do: I researched July 3's claims, and when I learned he was just copy and pasting from some creationist website I was able to muster this feeble reply:

July3,

I should note that the projected life span of one short-period comet, Halley's comet, is 40,000 years. There is about 150 million years worth of sediment in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where new sea floor is currently being generated. You're right about the sodium, or you would be if you weren't assuming salt cannot be removed from the oceans. Your contention on the Earth's magnetic field ignores the fact that the earth's magnetic polarity has reversed itself on numerous occasions. The consistency and accuracy of radioactive decay has been observed in laboratory studies.

My responses are over simplistic, BUT everything I've mentioned can be backed up by peer-reviewed scientific journals and articles. Every argument you've posed I've seen almost verbatim in creationist literature and on creationist websites. Now let me pose a few more tricky problems young earth creationists must deny: Speed of Light, Cepheid Variable Stars, Cosmic Microwave Background, Trigonometry, Ash Layers Between Sedimentary Layers, Plate Tectonics, Supernova 1987a, Globular Clusters, The Large And Small Magellanic Clouds, and ALL I repeat ALL other galaxies.

July 3 has not responded.

A message to Young Earth Creationists:I don't believe in god (duh). I have no problem with you believing in a god, and I recognize that religion has helped many people transform their lives for the good. But, if you believe god created the Earth why do you ignore it? If he created the mountains and the mountains tell us they are billions of years old why do you deny this in favor of a book written by flawed men, and translated over eighty times from its original language? Look at the world around you. Study it. Learn from it. That's all that the scientists you seek discredit are doing. The realities of evolution and big bang do not rule out the existence of a creator. Nor would proof of a creator be the end of science. Which would you rather listen to: the words of men (bible) or the actual creation of your god? I think that's an easy one.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Fun With Fundies

One of my favorite things to do on the Internet is watch porn all day long read the comments section on my local paper's website sj-r.com. The lunatic fringe of the city is usually out in full force, and the comments often serve better than caffeine to get my blood boiling first thing in the morning. Take this recent back and forth I had with some one calling themselves 'Smiling.' We'll start with Smiling's first comment:


Scientists have proven the earth was flooded, they have found Noah's Ark... God says in Genesis that he will never again destroy the earth with floods. He makes a bow, a rainbow to validate his promise. We still see rainbows today. This world gets uglier and uglier the further away from God we get. Believing that 'man' is the ultimate being...


Well this was certainly news to me. I had no idea the universal flood had been proven AND they (archaeologists, I suppose) found Noah's Ark!!! I thought news like this would have been plastered all over the front pages, and discussed ad nauseam on Fox News. I mean isn't this pretty much definitive proof of one of the world's major religions? It must be the liberal media plotting to keep this wonderful news from us.

Being the Skeptic (that's my sj-r handle) that I am I did some research into this matter. Sadly, I could find nothing to confirm Smiling's story. Being the cynical asshole that I am, I posed Smiling with this query:


Smiling, since you are so willing to accept that scientist's have proven a worldwide flood in Noah's time (they haven't by the way) are you also equally willing to accept other areas of science such as evolution, abiogenesis, and big bang?


This is reasonable, right? If good ole Smiling is willing to take the word of science to prove his ridiculous flood/Noah story, he must also accept the other facets of science he doesn't find so desirable. But, true to his fundie roots, Smiling did not see my point of view:


No, Skeptic, I will not concede to the evolution, big bang, etc. theories! Sorry! My belief is in a God, a higher being than myself, certainly not a scientist, who by the way is also a human being, not a higher being! Human beings are imperfect, I choose to believe there is One who is ... perfect. I HAVE to believe there is One who is better than - us.


At this point I can only conclude that Smiling has gone insane, using exclamations, ellipses, capital letters, and dashes all willy-nilly. This is typical fundamentalist nonsense. Smiling is willing to accept the science that gave him the computer he types on, his air-conditioned home, the medicine and vaccines that have saved millions and millions of lives without batting an eye. If you approach him with evolution or the big bang theories; all of a sudden science is clueless? Go figure.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

My Blog Coming Soon

Hello. I hope to have my first real blog post up sometime this week. Until then please enjoy this ridiculous 80s choreographed gang fight featuring the older brother from Mr. Belvedere.