Author: cosmo

Today at lunch Tony posed a teaser question:

Today the phase of the moon is waning gibbous (meaning it was full just a few days ago, so it’s nearly full now but getting smaller each day). What’s the phase of the Earth as seen from the moon?

We debated it for a few minutes and basically decided it would be opposite. In other words, the Earth would currently be waxing crescent (small and getting bigger).

Tony joked that I’d have to look up the answer tonight to make sure, so indeed I did. Here’s what I found:

Props to Tony for a puzzler.

The other day I was down at the co-location facility where I lease space for my web hosting servers. I’ve been continually growing for the past few years, adding servers and other hardware to keep things running smoothly as the need for more capacity increases. I decided to take a few pictures of the servers so I can track everything for maintenance (and insurance) purposes.

When I looked at the photos I realized this whole setup looks like quite a mess.

And that’s only about half of the refrigerator-sized rack that I have: there are more servers (and wires) above the top of this photo, and a few below as well.

Amazing that things work as well as they do…

My friend Rick took a surprise trip to the hospital this weekend, and I texted him today to see if I could come over and visit. His response was awesome.

Hot nurses! A nice reclining bed! Jell-o for every meal! What’s not to like about the hospital?

A hilarious de-motivational poster that caught my eye:

Every now and then God looks down on His creation and decides that it’s time for a good ultimate game.

So yesterday, in His infinite wisdom, he graced us with an absolutely gorgeous day: sunny, 60 degrees, and a slight breeze (hey, He has to challenge us just a little bit). And fourteen of us headed out to the fields and had a great time.

Disclaimer– this photo wasn’t taken yesterday.

Of course it made me realize how out of shape I am; it’s been a few months since I went running around for a solid hour. But hey, at least I wasn’t the only one huffing and puffing on the field.

Now today it’s chilly, windy, and they’re predicting snow. So it goes. Hopefully the Almighty will give us another nice day next week.

Well, it’s that fun time of year again: the part where I have to send an estimated tax payment to the IRS. Since 2008 is over, I owe personal taxes against the profits of my corporation. And if I don’t pay them by January 15th the IRS gets all huffy and demands interest and other fees.

I always hate writing checks to the IRS, but these days it feels particularly hard because I know that my money is just going to get channelled to some big corporation who happens to have persistent lobbyists. So I decided that I might as well suck it up, face reality, and encourage the government to do what they’re going to do anyway.

I wonder if smart-aleck comments on your tax checks flag you for an audit…

After a grueling recount, it looks like Al Franken’s friends will have to start addressing him as “Senator Franken”. It appears he’s beat out the Minnesota incumbent by just over 200 votes.

How awesome that a former Saturday Night Live star can rise to such an… err… auspicious office.

“Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.”

— Sir Isaac Newton

I’m doing my end-of-year business accounting (whee!) and looking at the year in review. As always, I’m curious how many hours I put in every week. Checking my timekeeping records, it turns out I spent 2,362 hours working in 2008. That’s not counting any vacation time– I don’t even record my vacation time as “time off” in the records. It comes to just over 45 hours a week, which actually isn’t too bad.

Of course my real goal is zero work hours. But that’s still a little way off…

Some guy named Bali Hai (his real name?) has collected a series of B-movie title screens that are pretty funny to see, mainly because the titles themselves are just screaming to be mocked.

Here’s a flick that Universal Pictures probably tries to forget:

And who could forget the classic:

And heck, here’s a movie I’d be interested in seeing just to find out what the Ultra Vixens are:

Clearly the guys who ran Mystery Science Theater 3000 missed a few opportunities…