This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s Count von Count from Sesame Street, singing a song in which the word “count” has been bleeped out, with hilarious results.  (The video’s pretty old—maybe everyone has already seen this and they just forgot to tell me about it.)

Over the weekend—while I was back home for my brother’s wedding (some pictures will likely come soon)—I noticed that the organic milk my mom has started buying has a really long shelf life.  The carton I was pouring milk from, for example, didn’t expire for well over a month.  I was curious why this was the case so I did a little research and it seems that this milk has been treated with ultra-high-temperature (UHT) processing, rather than regular pasteurization.  From what I’ve read on Wikipedia, it seems that UHT milk could actually sit at room temperature for months without going bad, and in Europe it’s actually sold unrefrigerated.  Apparently they sell it refrigerated here because Americans wouldn’t buy unrefrigerated milk in test markets.

I couldn’t find a consensus as to why organic milk is UHT processed, though.  Some people said it was because “organic cows” aren’t given antibiotics, so UHT must be used to be sure all bacteria are killed.  Another said organic milk is typically shipped from further away, so they have to use UHT or it would be about to expire by the time it got to the store.  I’m not sure which is the real reason and I don’t feel like doing any more research.

Anyway, I thought that was an interesting fact I’d share with the class.

No, and I don’t care.

Last night Stephanie, Emma, Stephanie’s dad, and myself were traveling to Florida to visit Stephanie’s sister.  Along the way, we stopped for gas twice: once in South Carolina and once in Georgia.  Both times, it took far too long for no good reason.  At the first gas station, for some reason, you have to go inside and prepay for gas, even if you are paying at the pump.  This makes no sense.  The only reason to require someone to go inside and prepay is if they are paying cash, because you are afraid they will drive away.  When you pay at the pump, the gas station has already ensured that you have enough funds on your credit card to cover the gas.  The second time we stopped, an attendant walked up to us after we pulled up beside a pump and said they were changing shifts inside and the pumps were going to be off for about ten-to-fifteen minutes.  (Also, he was smoking at the time.)  Really?  It takes fifteen minutes to balance the books when you change shifts??  And again, we were paying at the pump, which means we didn’t need to pay the guy at the register anything, so why couldn’t they at least leave the pumps open for people paying there?

Anyway, I just thought I’d share.  Enjoy your Independence Day everyone!

Last night I added a bunch of pictures from last week’s beach trip.  I also added a set of miscellaneous pictures which I titled “Emma in June.”  (The first three pictures in that set were moved from the “Emma continues to grow” set, but the rest are new.)

Some interesting tidbits-

• Emma did not care for the ocean (compare and contrast her facial expressions before and after touching the water).

• Emma’s second-cousin Clara, who is five and a half weeks her elder, was at the beach too.  At one point, Kaylor (Clara’s mother, who is my cousin) was holding Clara, and Scott (my brother) was with them, while some Asian family with a screaming baby was nearby (they were at a restaurant at the time).  Some moron—who must not have looked closely enough at Clara to realize Scott was definitely not the father—said to Kaylor, “That’s what this country needs: more good, white babies.”  Of course, Clara is only half white.  I think the guy just walked away after that (I wasn’t there).  Like I’ve said before on this blog, I’m always surprised that there are still truly racist people out there who are under the age of seventy.  I mean, if you were, let’s say, over 25 years old in 1960, maybe you were already set in your ways before we as a society figured out that racism is a Bad Thing, so you’ve at least got a bad excuse for your behavior.  For anyone younger than that:  really? seriously? there are still people that ignorant?  (Also, I can assure this guy that white babies are quite capable of screaming very loudly.)

• Emma likes riding on my shoulders.  But I think this is mainly because she likes running her hands through my hair.

Nearly two months ago, I joined Facebook.  I had low expectations, despite the fact that a few people whose opinions I value told me the same things I’m about to tell you.  I have to say, as a whole, Facebook doesn’t really suck.  I guess I was expecting something more like MySpace, which just kind of looks like the Internet ate too many gifs and had to throw them up as partially-digested ads.  Or something like that.  I probably stretched that analogy too far there.  Whatever.  The point is Facebook doesn’t suck, and it’s actually kind of fun, even for an antisocial computer geek like myself.

If you haven’t seen something like it before, this is pretty cool.  It is a hacked Super Mario World level that can be completed without touching the controller.  As far as I can tell, it uses only elements which were already in the game (except it looks like they modified Yoshi egg blocks so that Mario automatically jumps when he hits one).  This one is a really impressive one because it is like 11 minutes long and choreographed with anime music.  Enjoy.

While scanning through my junk mail folder in Gmail, I noticed a new spam tactic: directly insulting the reader.

<img class=”snapshot” src=”/files/for_blog/20080609_insulting_spam.png” title=”Snapshot of my spam folder, with subject reading “You look really stupid kip.robinson”” alt=”Snapshot of my spam folder, with subject reading “You look really stupid kip.robinson”” />

I’m curious if this is effective.  I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever read mail that is obviously spam nowadays, but these people must be making money somehow or they’d stop sending this stuff.  My guess is that anything which stands out is likely to be effective in piquing readers’ curiosity, much like the “I love you” e-mail virus from several years ago.  But only if other spammers don’t copy the tactic.

For all who are concerned (and I know many are concerned, because I get requests/demands frequently), some new pictures of Emma have been put up on this very website.  I also created an album of photos of Emma’s nursery.  Be sure that you see the time-lapse animation of Stephanie painting the Noah’s Ark mural!

A hilarious blog I discovered a few months ago is Stuff White People Like.  I’ve been meaning to mention it here for a while, but a good post last week, entitled Being Offended, reminded me I needed to share.  Here is an excerpt:

Naturally, white people do not get offended by statements directed at white people.  ...  As a rule, white people strongly prefer to get offended on behalf of other people.

Another good one is Knowing What’s Best For Poor People:

It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.

Those are two of my favorites.  Some other good ones to read are Study Abroad, Music Piracy, Organic Food, Hating Corporations, Religions that their parents don’t belong to, and Grammar.

And for a great cross-section of the kinds of idiots that reside on the internets, try to read some of the comments!  (I say “try to” because very few people will actually succeed.)