KGB Report by Kevin G. Barkes

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(July 2000 and earlier)

Saturday, March 11, 2006
posted by KGB at 7:21 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

You can't be happy with a woman who pronounces both d's in Wednesday.
-Peter de Vries

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Friday, March 10, 2006
posted by KGB at 12:01 AM (permalink)

Not the sharpest crustacean in the ocean...

"Scientists discovered a new kind of lobster
that's covered with blond hair. It's like
a regular lobster, only dumber."
-Jay Leno

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Thursday, March 09, 2006
posted by KGB at 5:51 AM (permalink)

Cast out demons and purchase quality skin care products

I heartily recommend this web site wherein one learns:
a) how to cast out demons;
b) why paisley fabric prints are the work of Satan, and
c) by scrolling to the bottom of the page, purchase quality Mary Kay cosmetics.

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posted by KGB at 4:57 AM (permalink)

I hate the New Yorker

(Not to be confused with the web site of the same name.)

Back around Christmas I indulged myself and bought a two year subscription to The New Yorker. I was looking forward to improving the quality of my bathroom reading, and anticipating the coming of warm weather, where paradise to me consists of sitting on the back porch skimming the magazine while the dog snoozes next to me on the glider.

The problem is that every issue I've received has arrived in my mailbox in progressively worse condition. First a tear in the cover, then badly creased inside pages, then tears in both the cover and inside.

On Monday I received one of those "Dear Valued Postal Customer" envelopes that says, in effect, our dog ate your mail. Inside was the cover of the March 6 issue, neatly folded. Just the cover. The remainder of the magazine was missing.

Now the Postal Service has done me wrong in the past. When I was in Chicago, my copy of The Funny Times consistently arrived almost a week later than my mother's back here in Pittsburgh, and it looked like it had been read by everyone at the local branch. One issue showed up with a distinct coffee cup ring, which implied someone was reading my copy while enjoying breakfast or lunch. Still, I never complained to the Post Office. I took solace in knowing that a postal carrier, someone who comes in contact with hundreds of people every day, was making his rounds armed with the very latest anti-Bush jokes.

The New Yorker debacle I fully blame on the magazine's cheap paper and binding. It has the flimsiest cover of any of the publications I receive, and it's saddle-stitched instead of perfect bound. The cover detaches far too easily, and since the cover contains the mailing label... well, I suspect The New Yorker shows up in the restrooms of many U.S. Postal Service processing facilities.

I called the magazine's customer service number, an exercise in futility. Replacement issues take four weeks to arrive, and they couldn't give me the name or number of anyone at The New Yorker who's responsible for print and binding decisions.

I hope they get their act together soon. There's not enough room on the glider for me, the dog, and a sunday newspaper. Or in the bathroom, either.

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Wednesday, March 08, 2006
posted by KGB at 8:13 AM (permalink)

Let's run the numbers, shall we?

Assuming a Random Distribution of Soulmates,
S (soulmate)=1/6,591,078,000 (Pop. of Earth),
for each encounter with another person,
times how many people a person encounters (e) in a lifetime...
or S = 1/6,591,078,000 x e

However, the probability of recognizing that soulmate must be diminished by the cumulative factors that distract a person's attention (ex. weather, other people, time, etc.) If a person's ability to pay attention to others is diminished by an average of only 20% during the times of day during which they interact with people, then it's really

S = (1/6,591,078,000 x e )x .8

S = ((1/6,591,078,000 x e) x W/(365 x L) x 6,591,078,000/(P x L) x V x R)- B

where
S=Probability of meeting Soulmate
e=People encounters in lifetime
W=weather factor
L=Life Expectancy
P=People within eyesight in a day
V=Vision accuity as % of normal
R=Random unknowable chaos variable
B=Preconceived notions which stimulate irrational aversion

(Response published on Google Answers by alex101-ga to the question, Probability of finding "The One" via Robot Wisdom.)

Mathematically, you're much better off getting a dog.

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posted by KGB at 8:02 AM (permalink)

Karma

Today is Be Nasty Day, Tar and Feather Day, and International Women's Day.

Contemplation of the juxtaposition of these observances is left as an exercise to the reader.

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posted by KGB at 4:26 AM (permalink)

Motion Denied Because You're An Idiot

Federal judge cites Adam Sandler's "Billy Madison" in order

(From The Smoking Gun)

MARCH 6- In what is surely a first for the federal judiciary, a Texas bankruptcy judge has quoted from the Adam Sandler film canon in a recent opinion. Dismissing a motion due to "incomprehensibility" Judge Leif Clark cited a scene from Billy Madison, Sandler's 1995 comedy, in a footnote to a February 21 court order.

"Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote," wrote a miffed Clark. Lawyers practicing before the 58-year-old jurist, who presides over cases in San Antonio, should tread lightly or Clark might again dip into the Sandler oeuvre for another stinging rebuke. "Hey, old man river, zip it or I will break your hip," from Big Daddy might work. Or perhaps the classic Happy Gilmore line, delivered by Sandler as he pummeled TV game show host Bob Barker: "The price is wrong, bitch."

(The quote cited in the footnote is:

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
The t-shirt is available on the right.)

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posted by KGB at 4:10 AM (permalink)

An alternative to the Flying Spaghetti Monster

(Frankly, those Pastafarians are becoming tiresome.)

The most extensive analysis yet undertaken of the structure and contents of the universe conclusively proves the universe was created not by a single entity, as has been widely suggested, but by "a fractious and disorganized committee or committees given to groupthink and petty infighting," according to Drs. Karl Pootle and Yumble Frick, co-authors of the study. The analysis is expected to have profound implications on the theoretical underpinnings of many popular religions. [...]

"Biodiversity is the primary stumbling block," said Dr. Pootle. "Whoever created this cacophony of species would have had to be infinitely powerful and infinitely creative, but also infinitely schizophrenic to come up with the myriad different solutions to identical problems that the creators of the universe have. Either that, or we're looking at a different kind of process altogether."

The Pootle and Frick study found that for any particular biological niche, a vast number of different approaches are taken by different species for solving nearly identical issues of survival. They also found that species are never static, but are constantly "being tweaked" in small but easily verifiable ways.

"If you're one guy designing a universe, why come up with twenty different ways of tackling the same issue?" Pootle said. "If you're omnipotent, presumably you know perfectly well whatever the one solution is that will work best, and you go with that. The fact that the world obviously doesn't work that way is what led us first to the committee theory. The plants and animals that inhabit the Earth show the kinds of random and incoherent thinking that can only otherwise be found in the products of design committees where there's a lot of CYA and turf protection going on."

Study Proves Universe Created By Committee

(via The Sanity Inspector on the alt.quotations Usenet newsgroup)

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Tuesday, March 07, 2006
posted by KGB at 7:13 AM (permalink)

Quote of the Day

Elsewhere, according to a report today by the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, half of the children in North and South America will be overweight by 2010, and the other half will pick on them.
The Borowitz Report

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posted by KGB at 6:17 AM (permalink)

Why bother?

Add Dominion Peoples to the list of companies that maintain web sites primarily to irritate its customers.

I wanted to get an explanation of what was covered by one of the warranty programs on the account.

As usual, it's the middle of the night and I want to do it now so I won't forget the next day. And by getting an e-mail response, I can save the message for later reference.

I fill out the online form, carefully completing all the items, hit the send key, and am immediately presented with:

This is in response to your Dominion Products and Services inquiry.

Any requests or questions you may have with regards to any product or
service programs, please contact them directly Monday through Friday
from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM 1-800-562-8419 .

Dominion Product and Services
P.O. Box 298
Pittsburgh, PA 15230-0298

I hope there's a new, special circle in Hell for web designers who inflict this type of insult on web users. Why not put a simple notice at the top of the form that says "Products and service program questions cannot be answered online. Please telephone 1-800-562-8419 during normal business hours on weekdays."

It's like forcing a dog to jump through a series of hoops, and then refusing to give him his treat.

I really have an urgent need to bite someone's ankle.

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Monday, March 06, 2006
posted by KGB at 5:44 AM (permalink)

Spring is here

Today's National Temperature Index is 604°F, the first time the NTI has been above 600 since November 14, 2005.

For those of you tracking the ominous shifts in global climate, prior years' first 600+ NTIs were March 28, March 15, and March 12. The last 600+ fall NTIs were November 19 and November 20.

It doesn't look good.

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Sunday, March 05, 2006
posted by KGB at 1:45 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

My dog is half pit bull, half poodle. Not much of a guard dog, but a vicious gossip.
-Craig Shoemaker

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Violators will be prosecuted.
So there.
The kgb@kgb.com e-mail address is now something other than kgb@kgb.com saga.
kgbreport.com used to be kgb.com until December, 2007 when the domain name broker Trout Zimmer made an offer I couldn't refuse. Giving up kgb.com and adopting kgbreport.com created a significant problem, however. I had acquired the kgb.com domain name in 1993, and had since that time used kgb@kgb.com as my sole e-mail address. How to let people know that kgb@kgb.com was no longer kgb@kgb.com but rather kgbarkes@gmail.com which is longer than kgb@kgb.com and more letters to type than kgb@kgb.com and somehow less aesthetically pleasing than kgb@kgb.com but actually just as functional as kgb@kgb.com? I sent e-mails from the kgb@kgb.com address to just about everybody I knew who had used kgb@kgb.com in the past decade and a half but noticed that some people just didn't seem to get the word about the kgb@kgb.com change. So it occurred to me that if I were generate some literate, valid text in which kgb@kgb.com was repeated numerous times and posted it on a bunch of different pages- say, a blog indexed by Google- that someone looking for kgb@kgb.com would notice this paragraph repeated in hundreds of locations, would read it, and figure out that kgb@kgb.com no longer is the kgb@kgb.com they thought it was. That's the theory, anyway. kgb@kgb.com. Ok, I'm done. Move along. Nothing to see here...