One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor...   Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Two new insightful and probing questions from Eeyore:

Q:  Which 7-11 Slurpee flavor has the most caffeine?

A:   Well, from the context of your question, I can only assume that a) you work in the IT industry, since only IT type folks ever ask questions regarding increasing their caffeine intake and, b) you already know the answer.  Therefore, this must be an actual test of my knowledge, skills, and googleability.  However, I think I can get this, without trying too hard, or using Google™.  Since 7-11™ sells almost all brands of sodas on their shelves, you may think this would be difficult.  But, I seem to recall that they only offer the PepsiCola™ brand of sodas as Slurpees™, and, as I further recall, Mountain Dew™ has the most caffeine of the PepsiCola™ brands, I can only conclude that the Mountain Dew™ flavor Slurpee™ (from PepsiCola™) would have the most caffeine. 

I now will need to hear from you as to the veracity of my answer, and would rebut with two questions of my own:

1.  Without googling, can you tell me what the ASCII code is for "™" used so liberally above and:
2.  Do you think I can get 7-11™ and PepsiCola™ to pay me a sponsorship fee for so blatantly advertising their products?

His next question

Q:  What is the national tipple of Mexico ???

A:  I think here good ol' Eeyore is trying to trip me up on the definition of 'tipple'.  While tipple has etymological roots meaning 'barkeep', its more familiar common usage means 'to drink (especially alcohol), by habit or to excess, or drinking alcohol frequently in small amounts'.  Therefore, the obvious answer is, and can only be, DeKuyper™ Sour Apple Pucker.  Since we all know those crazy Mexicans are junkies for a nice, sour apple liqueur. HAH!  Just kidding.  In fact, the answer is obviously Tequila, which takes us back to the original question.  Instead of focusing on the word 'tipple', we should instead be focusing on the word 'national' as it pertains to Tequila.  This is actually a quite timely question (as I'm sure he knows), since right now there is a debate raging between the US and Mexican governments regarding the usage of the term 'tequila' in regards to a liquor made from the Blue Agave plant.  Mexico wants to prohibit American manufacturers from bottling Tequila.  They are claiming it as a national Brand(™?) and want to protect it.  The US, on the other hand, would like to keep as many jobs as possible here, and also would like to take advantage of the economy of scale realized when Tequila is mass transported in containers, then bottled here.  (Man...wouldn't you just LOVE to come across the crash where a 45,000 gallon tanker truck full of Tequila began spilling its contents?) 

A decent article on the Tequila bottling debate can be found here.

Keep 'em coming kids.

 

Merkin? Whats A Merkin?   Friday, March 21, 2003

The Git writes in:

===========

A question...

... for your FAQ.

Do Merkins have a special, secret dictionary they use so they can confuse us
furriners? ;-)

(name withheld, if you want it, go to his daily diatribe..link is on main page--Ed.)
The world's most Pompous Git according to Google!

========

What a great question.

Well, the obvious answer is that all pubic wigs, whether of a left or right bent, are constantly trying to confuse furriners.  If you think it through to the logical conclusion, a furriner would be an obvious threat to the continued employment of Merkins everywhere.  Besides, who would want real, actual, organic animal fur down there anyway?  I suspect that, although the natural fibers may not itch as much as the synthetic Merkin ones, they would most definitely cause unwanted sweating and personal odor. 

To this end, Merkins have come up with a super-secret Dictionary, and have distributed it among furriners.  Some phrases, words, and their definitions you may find in there are:

-------
'is': (iz) definition unknown/unclear, after debate started by former U.S. President Clinton

'Axis of Evil': (ack-sis_uv_e-vil) Countries who have oil that we want.

'Democracy': (dim-awk-ra-see) [obs.] Any governmental system or country that agrees with us.  See also 'Federal Republic' and 'Widely misunderstood governmental principals--The Electoral College'

'Terrorist': (tear-oar-ist) Any governmental system or country that disagrees with us, or one known to harbor institutions or groups that use terrorism to promote their political, religious, and economic interests.  See also 'Except for Ireland!', 'Well, we don't want to get into it with South Korea' and 'Aww heck, they don't have any oil.'

'President of The United States of America': (dub-ya)  The leader of the free world, as appointed by the Supreme Court of The United States, despite losing the popular vote, and obviously erroneous ballot collection, which lead to electoral college members to cast their vote to whomever could pay the most.  See also 'Democracy'.
-------

Well, that's it for another fact-filled edition of Frennzy's Fun FAQs.  Let's play safe out there.

Pygmalion, American Idol, and the art of database maintenance   Thursday, March 13, 2003

SJBIdaho points us to this article and asks:
"Frennzy, Do you think it is possible to skew the results of this "juke box test" to  have a reverse effect?"

Well, if I understand your question correctly, I would say yes.  Results of a program like this would be very similar to any statistical sampling.  Basically, a percentage of conformity with a set of pre-determined conditions, in a specific set of pre-determined criteria.  In this case, the program would be fed the signatures of current hit music, and would then test new music to determine how well that new music matches those signatures.  That said, all statistical results can be skewed to support just about any argument (unless you live in Florida during an election year). 

Now if you were asking more along the lines of "could we manually alter the input criteria, and would it create a new type of 'hit' song?", again, I would probably say yes...if enough of the public were monitoring the results that come out of the program.  Support for this argument comes from Fox Television, in the form of 'American Idol'.  The presumption there being that anybody good enough to win the contest will automatically be a smash success.  There is a sort of Pygmalion effect here.  Perception becomes reality.  Success in the music industry today has much less to do with the substance of the music than it does with image, promotion, and marketing.  While I don't begrudge anyone the right to use those tools to further their musical career, I firmly believe that they should have some talent prior to using them. 

Finally, if you were asking, "could we do some subtle manipulation of the data, in order to prove that people like Britney Spears actually have no talent, and there is no reason that she should be a star?", then the answer can only be:  I sure hope so.

That's the FAQ, Jack.  Keep 'em coming.

Removing Bumper Stickers   Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Hey!  My first FAQ! (which makes it more of an AQ than a FAQ, but I digress)

cluelessnewbie writes with the following question:

"Dear Frennzy.  Recently, my daughter stuck a bumper sticker on her bedroom door.  It states 'You're just jealous because you can't hear the voices, too!'  At first I thought it was cute, but now I would like to take it down.  Her door is wood, and I don't want to ruin it.  What do I do?"

Dear Clueless:

The real trick here is not so much to remove the bumper sticker from the door, but to remove the door from the bumper sticker.  This is a mistake made far too often from de-adhesing newbies.  

Furthermore, simply removing the door from the bumper sticker is not enough...one must convince the door that it not only *can* survive without the bumper sticker, but that in reality it *needs* to separate in order to lead a normal, healthy, doorstyle. 

So, how does one do it?  Well, I'll tell you.  First of all, you are going to need some nice, mellow mood music.  Something to set the scene.  I recommend (who else)...The Doors.

Second, the door will need to be placated and cajoled.  "Niiiice Door."  "Pretty Door."  "Well...wood you look at that!"  "What an impressive and important portal."  "What a stout and strong door."

Now that you have gained the door's trust, you need to prepare your instruments.  The first instrument I recommend is a doorbell.  Doors love these bells.  The second instrument I recommend is martini shaker, filled with suitable amounts of all-potato vodka and ice, as well as the minimum permissable amount of Vermouth (check your local and state regulations for Martini Mixing Guidelines). 

Next, and this is the important part, make sure you have had enough martinis to stabilize your hands as well as your nerves...this is no time to back out.   Be brave.  Be strong.

Martinis suitably stored on board, it's time to get down to business.  Whilst walking along the hallway near said door (important note:  make sure you are on the side with the bumper sticker, otherwise the door is going to get mad, and never give up the offending propaganda).  Anyway...whilst whistling to yourself (I suggest whistling the theme from 'Behind The Green Door' for it's distraction qualities), begin to sidle past the door.  As soon as you are sure that the door isn't paying much attention, reach out, grab that bumper sticker and yank it for all you're worth!  You'll find that 9 out of 10 times, this works flawlessly, just like removing a child from a Band-aid™.

Frennz