“bag, saw the guy, looked right at me” — the note Chris Bauman, Boston Marathon bombing victim, wrote while in intensive care after the explosion took both his legs.
(Source: bloomberg.com)
Well, that explains me. I’m much more than just a pretty face ;-p.
According to a new study, taller people tend to have a higher IQ than shorter people. The correlation isn’t as high as my amateur graph shows, but it’s there.
(Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com)
that mexican white girl: I remember being a freshman and sophomore in high school mariachi and... -
I remember being a freshman and sophomore in high school mariachi and wanting to give up. Not because I couldn’t do it but because the upper class men were so mean and hateful. I remember the note they wrote to the most awkward boy in the group confessing my “love” for him. I remember the printout one of them had in her binder that said I was a cocky little fish that thought I could sing. I remember the lemonade they poured in my backpack that ruined all my homework. But then they left. Then it was my time to shine and I took it. Suddenly I was better than they ever were. I was a music major in college and they had flunked out after a semester. Then I was a certified degreed director for an amazing program and those same upper class men suddenly want to be my friend and remember me fondly.
I’ve forgiven them. Just like I have forgiven all the people that have made my first job here so hard. Because I know I can do it, just like back then. I love music and teaching and my students. I work hard every day to teach them what I know: that winning isn’t important, learning is. That music and mariachi is fun! That you can do this all your life, and that no matter how bad things get, when you put on a traje de charro and play your heart out, everything is better.
It hurts when you finally achieve success and the same people who always derided you for losing now refuse to accept you can win. But I believe in myself and my students. When the going gets tough, I get my violin and channel the negativity into positive energy. Because some day those same people that put so much effort and energy into making my job difficult will see me shine. I don’t have to play their games or get revenge. When they see I have succeeded they’ll know who the real winner is.
It only took 20 years for the U.S. to become fat. This GIF was created from the slides of a PowerPoint presentation on obesity rates found at the CDC website.
Previously, I had used the same slides for a presentation on obesity I did in my college composition class. I got an A+ ;-).
Well, I finally got around to watching the Hobbit this past weekend. I was put off from watching it when it came out because, among other reasons, the reviews were bad. I didn’t like it for the following three reasons.
Filler, and lot’s of it. It definitely felt like they added an awful lot of padding to turn what was originally planned to be two movies into a trilogy. Some of the scenes felt unnecessary. From the very beginning, it took the characters about 45 minutes to leave Bilbo’s house and begin their “unexpected journey.”
Silliness: I understand The Hobbit was a children’s book, but there was way too much silliness in this movie. In the LOTR trilogy, all of the characters were portrayed with dignity. In those films, even the Orcs spoke more proper English than half the people I know. The Hobbits, the silliest of all the inhabitants of Middle-Earth, were funny, but not child-like. And what’s with all the singing? In this film, most of the characters were portrayed as caricature versions of themselves.
Predictability and repetitiveness. Maybe it was because I was not impressed and was picking out all the flaws, but the action scenes seemed to develop in typical Hollywood-like predictability. Like when the gang was trapped between a rock and a hard place, and you see Gandalf whisper something to a butterfly, what does it mean? It means eagles will wait until the last possible moment, and swoop in to rescue them. There was plenty more, but I’m getting angry just writing about it.
It feels like the second Star Wars trilogy all over again, only there were lots of Jar-Jars. The LOTR trilogy was not only a box office hit, it was critically acclaimed and won a total of 17 academy awards. This first of three films was nominated for 3 and won 0. Critically speaking, it was literally an epic fail.
I love this. It’s a map of the many varieties of taco found in different parts of Mexico. Being a native of Northeastern Mexico myself, I looked around for my favorite variety, the mighty sincronisada–in my opinion, the greatest invention ever by human kind next to the internet and the Hubble Space Telescope.
I couldn’t find it, but that just means there’s too many varieties to fit in this map. I would love to be able to try all of them. Maybe one day on a taco tour of Mexico.
North Korea’s been talking a lot of smack lately, exchanging fightin’ words between the U.S. and South Korea, among others. They’re threatening with “merciless” missile attacks and nukes, but should we be afraid for our imperialist capitalist butts?
Unless you live in Alaska, the answer is no. As the above image from the Washington Post shows, their mightiest missiles would fall short about 600 miles (my own estimate) from Washington State and the rest of the U.S mainland. Even Hawaii is beyond their reach.
The people who have the most to fear are the inhabitants of the Korean peninsula and the Japanese.
(Source: Washington Post)
The other day I was browsing Buzzfeed and found this gem of an article. It features an incredibly spoiled and bratty teenager who calls himself “lavish” with an interesting Instagram feed. He is, as Buzzfeed puts it, the worst teenager on Instagram.
This kid needs to be slapped. He uploads photos of his extravagant lifestyle, then goes and calls his followers peasants and treats them like the feudal lords of old. At least on IG he does, I doubt he would do that in person.
Anyway, I decided to do some trolling of my own. Here’s a comment I left on one of his photos.
There, that’ll get through to him. No but seriously, check out his feed. Where are all the hot girls? Where are the parties? Where are the shots with celebrities or appearances at major events? Wherever, whenever he poses, he is always alone. That’s not quite the lifestyle of the rich and famous; just a spoiled rich kid with no idea what to do with such an extraordinary blessing.
It’s no question, we’re all getting fatter. Some more than others. How do you know just how “fat” you are? Easy, you use the body mass index formula. Using the metric system, BMI = mass (kg) / (height (m))^2, or in English units, BMI = mass (lb) / (height (in))^2 x 703.
These equations lack adequate formatting. If they’re confusing, you can see them on Wikipedia here.
Below is a table for average BMI in several countries sorted by from least to most fat. Guess who’s #1?
To be fair, there were other countries left out, many of which are fatter than the U.S. This is just a sample of them.
If the above equations seem daunting, use the BMI widget below to see how you fare up:
(Source: visual.ly)
Have you ever thought about what the major causes of death were during the 20th century? Of course you haven’t! Why would you? That’s just weird. Well, I have. And guess what? It wasn’t the butler!
Some weirdo uploaded a public spreadsheet (link below) onto Google Docs that shows estimates of what these causes were. Check out the summary:
So, overall, disease is enemy #1, and will probably continue to be so during the 21st century. I expected war to be higher, but I guess that’s just one of the many misconceptions we have over things we don’t bother to learn about.
(Source: docs.google.com)