The Correct Way to Spell Spinal Tap

Spinal Tap, the greatest fake/real band ever, is typically spelled incorrectly. The official spelling contains umlauts over the n and no dot over the letter i. However, there is no Unicode n-umlaut (or n-diaeresis), so you can't exactly type it. Somehow, Wikipedia managed to do it. (Note: diaeresis would be more accurate versus umlaut, since the umlaut represents a change in the sound of the letter.)

N-umlaut does occur in three languages: Malagasy (spoken in Madagascar), Jacaltec (a Mayan dialect spoken in Guatemala and southern Mexico), and in Cape Verdean Creole.

The dotless i, or ı, occurs in Turkish, in addition to a dotted i. So of course, there are dotted and undotted capital i's as well: İ & I. The dotless i also occurs in Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Tatar, and (traditional) Irish (which has no dotted i).

Metro & Elevation Burger Have the Same Designer

Kissing Under the Mistletoe Is A Norse Tradition

Much like Santa himself, reindeer, Xmas trees, wreaths, and more, kissing under the mistletoe is yet another Xmas tradition that predates christianity. Therefore, I highly advocate it at Xmastime.

Baldr, the Norse god of light, beauty, love, and happiness, was the second son of Odin. He often had prophetic dreams, including one where he dreamt his own death. His mother, Frygg, made every object on earth vow not to hurt Baldr. However, mistletoe never took the vow, as Frygg thought it was too unthreatening to hurt Baldr. So of course, the gods had a new pasttime: throwing things at Baldr since nothing can harm him. Naturally, Loki, the asshole of the gods, made a spear of mistletoe and went to the chuck-things-at-Baldr party. He gave the mistletoe spear to Baldr's blind brother, Hodur, who threw it at Baldr and killed him.

Then a bunch of fire happened, but that's not important here.

Frygg pleaded to the goddess of the underworld, Hel, to let Baldr return to earth. Hel agreed on the condition that all objects alive and dead wept for him. And everything did, except for the giantess Þökk (actually Loki in disguise). So of course the gods hunted Loki down, tied him to three rocks, and put a serpent above his face to drip venom onto him.

Anyway, Frygg was so happy that Baldr was revived, that she commanded anyone standing under mistletoe to kiss as a reminder of how love conquered death.

So there you have it.

Festivus

I hope everyone is having an adequate Festivus!

The Truth About the Salvation Army

Note: I'm not (just) writing this because those damn incessant bell ringers make me violent.

The Salvation Army is a right-wing evangelical Christian organization that actively discriminates against homosexuals. During the Bush administration they were trying to get the White House to issue a regulation that would allow them to be exempt from any local antidiscrimination laws so they wouldn't have to hire any gay people. Gay people who just want to help the less forunate. When people found out about this and complained, the White House immediately changed their minds.

They could almost make the point that because it's more or less a "church" (Where are their churches exactly?) the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allows them to discriminate due to their religious beliefs when hiring people. But these aren't people answering phones at some backwoods hate-filled funeral-protesting church. The Salvation Army is a highly visible, worldwide charitable organization whose churchiness is nowhere near the level of their charity.

The Salvation Army cares so much more about hating homosexuals than helping the poor that when New York City proposed a law that would require any organizations doing business with the city to provide equal benefits to unmarried domestic partners, the Salvation Army threatened to close all soup kitchens in New York City. I guess they think in god's eyes, it's more important what you're putting into your ass than whether you have anything to put into your mouth.

Fuck the Salvation Army.

Verizon Center's Seats

...still have the old Caps logo on the end of the rows. Imagine how expensive and tedious it would be to change every single one.

Green Power?

This was taken in the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station of the DC Metro.

I Was on HBO!

My lovely fiancée and I were on the first episode of HBO 24/7 Presents NHL Hockey Penguins vs. Capitals.

I'm the blue blob in the top left corner. That's right, I was at a Caps game wearing my Leafs jersey. Give me a break. I only get to wear it twice a season. The lovely fiancée is the reddish smudge to the right of me.

Mercury is Smaller Than Some Moons

Mercury is the smallest planet (unless you still count Pluto). Its radius at the equator is 2440km. This means that it's smaller than Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, as well as Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Mercury is just barely larger than the second-largest of the Jovian moons, Callisto.

Small world, eh? HAHAHAHAA.

Holiday Simpsons Episodes

If Fox ever makes a calendar, I won't buy it. Judging by the dates they air Simpsons episodes, their calendars are all kinds of wrong. Observe the table below:

Holiday	Date of Holiday	Associated Simpsons Holiday Episode	Date Aired	Days from nearest Sunday to Holiday
Halloween	Sun Oct 31, 2010	Treehouse of Horror XXI	Sun Nov 7, 2010	7 days earlier
Xmas	Sat Dec 25, 2010	The Fight Before Christmas	Sun Dec 5, 2010	21 days later
New Year's Day	Sat Jan 1, 2011	Donnie Fatso	Sun Dec 12, 2010	21 days later

The first Simpsons episode ever ("Simpsons Roasting On an Open Fire") was an Xmas episode. It aired 8 days before Xmas 1989.

The first Treehouse of Horror was aired 6 days before Halloween 1991. Airing the Halloween episode 7 days late I could understand if Halloween hadn't fallen on a Sunday (regular air day for The Simpsons) this year! In fact, the Treehouse of Horror episodes have been showing after Halloween for years now! It has to stop.

Furthermore, it's mind-blowing that the Xmas and New Year's episodes are on  3 full weeks before the holiday.

Get your act together, Fox, and stop ruining The Simpsons.

Tomas Kaberle Has No Chin

Suitcase Guitar!

Santa Steals Children

22th Floor

The True Story of Santa

Which Way is Up?

This gets more confusing: I was on the top level of the building!

Troll Math

Seems pretty solid until you realize that if you cut squares out infinitely, it's still not a circle. There will be an infinite number of perpendicular lines instead of a curve.