I don't remember where I saw this, but sometime recently I passed by a nice little Flash quiz that tested how well you knew the person about whom the test was crafted.

Well, I don't have to time to assemble a nice Flash quiz today, so you'll just have to do your own scoring.  Some of the answers to these questions might be found by searching the site.  Maybe you should use the search box and see if you find anything else interesting.

This quiz should be an exercise in randomness for those that don't know me.

Be sure to leave your score in the comment area:

1. Which one of these music artists is not in my CD collection?
   1. MC Hammer
   2. Michael Jackson
   3. Richard Marx
   4. Jimi Hendrix

2. The constable was once dispatched to my house to bring me in for:
   1. ...delinqunet credit card bills.
   2. ...unpaid parking tickets.
   3. ...an unreturned movie rental.
   4. ...a disturbance complaint.

3. Which one of the following things have I never juggled?
   1. Pins
   2. Screwdrivers
   3. Fire
   4. Knives

4. When I was younger, I went on a camping trip that was significant because:
   1. ...I got lost and was recovered by park rangers.
   2. ...I hiked across three states.
   3. ...that's where I met my first girlfriend.
   4. ...it was on this trip that I found God.

5. In car trips we'd take to the bay when I was younger, what was my CB handle?
   1. Fuzzy Bear
   2. Ohio Wisconsin
   3. Ringmaster
   4. Big O

6. At what job did I first earn regular paychecks?
   1. Beef slicer at Arby's
   2. Bus boy at a country club
   3. Answering service operator
   4. Pizza maker at Little Caesar's

7. At what age did I first learn to program a computer?
   1. 4
   2. 6
   3. 8
   4. 10

8. After which of these actors' character was I named?
   1. Robert Redford
   2. Tony Benson
   3. Russel Collins
   4. Tom Adams

9. For what sport did I win a championship trophy?
   1. Wrestling
   2. Lacrosse
   3. Volleyball
   4. Baseball

10. I've had my picture taken with what famous Philadelphia sports player?
    1. Julius Erving
    2. Tug McGraw
    3. Mark Howe
    4. Ron Jaworski

Highlight this box to see the answers:

I stole a few links from Pseudomain to write this reply to Katie over at her LJ.

Let's clear things up here a little.  Assume that Bush is doing great in Iraq, which is personally not my belief, but will let me address these other concerns of why Bush ain't that great.

His record on the environment is atrocious.  Not only are his active policies an affront to nature, but the spin he tries to give to the media is an outright lie.

"The Bush administration has distorted scientific fact leading to policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry."  This statement was made by a group of 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates.  Bush tried to make up for it by proposing a trip to Mars, which might be a good idea, but the foreign press (typically not as biased to Bush butt-kissing as US media) doesn't see it happening.

Bush's No Child Left Behind act is paradoxically causing schools to fail to provide sufficient education for college admission.  The plan is costing taxpayers so much money that the state of Utah is considering foregoing federal education funds so that it doesn't have to waste millions of dollars they don't have to implement these ineffective federally-mandated programs.

Even as a leader, if you've seen him on TV, he's not very effective.  He avoids important questions posed in live news conferences about his thoughts on the war, he uses his office to hide the casualties suffered in the war from the media, his office tells senior officials not to comply with congressional investigations, and whether he agrees with gay marriage or not, his office has no business making statements in that regard.

Let's talk for a moment about gay marriage and Bush's plans against it.  Have any of Bush's supporters noticed that constitutional amendments are designed to grant rights, not prohibit them?  They prohibit the state (the US federal government) from making policy that infriges on citizens' rights, and defines only in a very limited way the extent of those rights.  Indeed, marriage is a right allocated by the federal government to each state.  What person acheives the position of President of the United States yet has overlooked these fundamental operations of government?

Ok, so maybe he's not perfect.  Maybe his war-time policies need to be examined, too.

Sure those other events were longer than the war if you only count the first bombings.  Last I checked, we had quite a few troops in Iraq, and recently there was a very bloody fight with many US casualties.  In spite of the fact that our armies are not trained as a police force, but an assault weapon - in fact, our constitution forbids such a use of our armed forces - we're occupying and policing a foreign country.  That's the line we get from the government that makes it seem like the war has been over for some time.  In actuality, we're still fighting that war every day a soldier gets killed by some Iraqi that just doesn't want us there.

Concerning the length of time we've been looking for weapons of mass destruction versus the length of time Hillary's been looking for Rose Law Firm billing records, I can say only one thing:  At least we know for sure that the billing records aren't some paranoid delusion of a God-weilding president who couldn't decide whether to let his NSA adviser testify at demand of Congress.

I don't see how my support of troops in Iraq can be misconstrued.  If I didn't support our troops in Iraq, I wouldn't be mad that our president keeps sending our kids over there to die.  Here's the distinction: I support *our troops*.  I do not support *the action in Iraq*.

Nonetheless, I don't think that voting Bush out of office will make it any easier for us to remove ourselves from the quagmire in the middle east.  He has made our bed and now we *all* have to lay in it.  And that's what makes me so angry about Bush.  Right or wrong, he put us into a position that gives us no choice, the necessity of which was dubious at best and only immediately supported by voters because our need for revenge for 9/11.  We now have a national policy to attack nations that don't profess the same moral values as a Christian Bible, that have comparatively insignificant military might to fight back.   We've become a global bully, and we're going to pay for it not just in dollars, but in lives of people, Iraqis and Americans both, that could do better than soil their reputations with this.

My goal here is not to get Bud to write more, but let's see what happens.

Why the heck are there so many endangered species?  I don't think that it's as nefarious as it sounds.  Yes, we humans suck, sure, sure.  But we're talking about different varieties of bats, here.

How many different types of bats (not different species mind you, but different locales) do they need on the island of Hawaii?  Is the Louisiana black bear so much different from one in a northern state?  How many different kinds of foxes and ferrets are there in California that we need to single out each one as endangered?

I propose that if there is just one of each distinct fox that is going extinct in California, then they've got enough foxes to repopulate the whole place.

Besides that, what the heck is a Markhor?  Have you ever heard of this beast that runs around in Afghanistan?  Here are some interesting facts about this very strange animal (stolen from this site):

• The markhor climbs trees in search of nutritious leaves. It can be seen standing on a branch of an oak tree 4 - 6m (15 - 20') above the ground, calmly munching.
• The markhor is one of the most desired of all hunting trophies, with the record horn length exceeding 1.5m (60")
• The name markhor is derived from the Persian mar, a snake, and khor, eating. This name is puzzling, since the markhor is a vegetarian, although it has been known to kill snakes.
• Goats such as the markhor are found in the same general areas as various species of sheep. In order to coexist, goats and sheep divide up their habitat so that the goats occupy cliffs and their immediate vicinity, while sheep prefer the plateaus above cliffs and the gently sloping areas below them.

It amuses me that these animals are nearing extinction.  I say amuses not because I think it's funny that they're endangered, but I wonder how stupid the people who are native to the same area are.

Think about it.  These are animals that graze along side stinking sheep.  They're not vicious.  They're not deadly.  They travel in large herds.  I can't imagine that goat meat is more prized than sheep, so the only reason to shoot them would be to take their horns. 

It also says in the writeup that they're used in the asian medicine market. Huh?  Is someone drying and grinding Markor tongues to distribute as a natural Viagra?  Huh?  Huh?

You would think that if their horns or body liquids were so prized, then someone would have learned to farm them and remove their horns safely.  So what has dropped the average herd size from 100 to 9?

Let's be realistic.  These creatures live in the mountains of northwestern India.  If the people living there in the highest mountains in the world are hunting goats, it's not because they're making money on the horns, it's because they're hungry.  They're not forcing these animals out of their homes, there are barely any people living out there.  Will someone please quote a head per square mile figure comparison between markhor and humans in this area?  I bet that the beasties have them pretty well beat.

Look, I'm not for the extermination of any of these creatures, but it's time that - as I've said somewhere else on this site - environmentalists start making sense of what they're doing and prioritizing their efforts.  Start showing that saving the environment and the creatures that naturally occur in the place as something that everyone might want to do, rather than harping on how we're squandering all of our resources and ridding ourselves of unique species that we'll never see again.  Tell use what to do, for pity's sake!

Because you know what they're doing for the poor endangered Markhor?

Nothing.

That's right- squat.  Maybe they don't have the resources.  But I wonder what's going on when we've got hundreds of critters on the endangered species list (a list that repeats the same species over different breeds and locales) and can't do more to save a Californian fox than plant a few shrubs around some prisons and oil pipelines.  Maybe if they could show us why keeping these foxes around is a good idea, we might enjoy doing something to save them.  I don't think anyone will say that saving the fox (or Markhor, or whatever) is a bad idea, but I wonder how they expect to motivate anyone to do anything about it when they keep enforcing the idea that we suck.

And there sits the poor Markhor, antlers in the air, head hanging high on the wall over your Saturday night dinner at Longhorn Steak House.  Mmm.

As previously mentioned, this local area is distinctly lacking in food choices.  West Chester has a little more variety, but it's not a convenient drive for when people come to visit.

I like the idea of these sushi places popping up here and there.  Coatesville simply doesn't have the cultured populace to support something like that near work.  I'm doomed to KFC and Burger King.  I can't even get a Taco Bell in this anti-culture environment.

Chinese food is good, but you only have a few options.  Either you're getting take-out or you're eating at a buffet.  Neither of these ideas is particularly appealing to me as a dinner option when I want to take someone out to eat.

Here's what I was thinking would be very cool for around home, if someone really wanted to open a new restaurant.  I suggest that someone opens a chinese fusion restaurant near here.

It wouldn't be a super-posh dining experience, but it could have the same level of cheesy decorations that they throw around all of those cookie-cutter restaruants.  Rather than nailing old pictures, license plates, and Volkswagon bumpers to the wall, they could put appropriate shoots of botted bamboo in some corners, and hang Chinese tapestry.  The booths would be separated with pseudo-rice paper (since you don't want kids poking through the walls).  Best of all, the fake Chinese decorations would probably be made in China!

The food would be your typical Chinese take-out, but a limited menu.  I have stared at Chinese food menus for hours trying to figure out what I would like.  I think that the difficulty is not just that there are so many choices, but that I don't know what any of them mean.  What the heck is Szechwan beef, anyway?  Why does it taste so radically different from restaurant to restaurant?

The food choices should be discrete, with perhaps 3-4 selections from each of the Chinese food groups: Beef, Pork, Seafood.  There would be the typical side items, like egg rolls and spring rolls, and the mysterious pu-pu platter.  Every meal comes with a choice of fried rice (matched to your choice of meat) or white rice.  For soup, hot and sour, wonton, and lemongrass.

Perhaps there could be a small Thai section as well, for the adventurous connoisseur.  This would include Pad Thai and Evil Jungle Princess (or some other cryptically named evil dish).  The key to the menu is that all of the entrees are described for flavor, so you know what you're getting.

This place would have a wokery bar rather than a sushi bar.  You tell the chef what you want cooked and he does it in a wok right in front of you over an open flame.

I think an important addition would be some chinification of some american dishes.  For example, a good steak and some rice with a side of Chinese veggies would be a decent meal.  This type of thing would be required because there is always someone in a medium to large group that won't eat "that stuff".  It's kind of like the corn dog they serve at Chi-Chi's, but for a grown-up.

Maybe this place should just serve a variety of asian foods.  Korean pork barbeque on fresh lettuce leaves with white rice would be nice.  Teriyaki beef is tasty, but I might prefer a nice vegetable tempura with a ginger sauce and a spring roll.  Or maybe have some roti with a variety of chutney, and samosas as an appetizer.  As long as there aren't 50 varieties and the flavor is easy to describe in a short written description, it should be fine.

Why not have limited selections of all of these foods under one roof?  Sounds yummy to me.

With the profits you take from using this restaurant idea, please also build a CompUSA into the shopping center across the street from me.  Thanks.

If you didn't realize it, the layout of the site has changed.

I know that many of you subscribe to the email service and never really come see the site, so you might not have noticed the layout change.  Those of you who visit the site have probably noted the new design, which has been up for a day or two.

Incidentally, if you haven't signed up for the email service, you can do so using the box in the (now) right-side column.  Bloglet is pretty cool in that it lets you aggregate your blog email subscriptions.  For example, I subscribe to my own site (to make sure it's working, not some weird vanity thing), Pseudomain, and ScriptyGoddess (who knows why), and my daily email contains a composite of all three sites.  Plus, they don't send advertising in the email, which is a great bonus.

Anyhow, the picture on the site is a Xevoz figure that I assembled.  When I saw it at the store I immediately had two thoughts.  First, I thought that this would make a wonderful graphic for the site.  Second, I thought that this thing looked an awful lot like the evolution of the Stickfas line, which you might have seen here before.  Even after searching the box for a Stickfas logo, I didn't find one until I got home.  It turns out I was right!

Anyway, the concept of the toy seems on par with how Lego really should have done Bionicle.  Actually, I think I would like Xevoz history to be as rich as Bionicle's history, but the gameplay aspect is pretty cool.

Unfortunately, this is another one of those games that I'm never going to know a person who wants to play with me.  Perhaps I will have to craft a web game that uses pictures of the models, eh?

I'll take this moment to reminisce about one of the gifts I had given to Adam for his birthday.  I actually went out of my way to find one of the Lego Technic sets to give to Adam, since I had just been through a series of small Technic models and was quite addicted.  It wasn't the full gift; there was something else to it, but that was the non-certificate half, the half that Adam could hold and say, "Wow, I got this."  Adam thanked me for the gift, half joking that his son would have a good time putting it together.

The next week at our game when I saw Adam, he was shocked that he underestimated the Technic assembly skill.  I was amused.  The next year, I gave Adam a Stickfa (not as difficult, but still rather cool) for his birthday, along with some gift certificate.

Sunday, I set about to get a picture of this Ninja for the site.  Being that it was such a fantastic weather day, I took the little guy outside and set him up on the sidewalk.  I took about 15 shots of him at different angles and settings with the digital camera and then took my files back to the computer.

I knocked out the background like I do with every image like this: Corel Knockout.  This model took a long time to get the detail right - About 3 hours.  Knockout did a very good job at removing the background, but there were little pieces of sidewalk rock that had blended in with the gray in his body here and there.  These required more detailed attention.

Additionally, I bothered to knock out the shadow, which was a lot of work because it needed to be separated from the model details.  Unfortunately, there isn't a working graphics package (just Fireworks at this point, since my eval of Photoshop expired along with my eval of PhotoPaint 12) on my new computer, so I couldn't preserve the shadow for the web design.  I think it still looks pretty good.

The new font up there is called "Kendo", part of the ITC font collection.  I had a devil of a time trying to get .net and Delphi to generate heading graphics dynamically for each article.  As you can see, it's still not working.  For some reason, .net can't see the Kendo font (I suspect because it's not OpenType, but TrueType).  And although the Delphi application worked on my home system, it didn't work on Windows 2003, also for no reason that I could determine.  So you're left with plain H1 titles.  For now.

I added the dash of red up there, which I won't admit to being blood, but that's the general idea, it seems.  You'll also note that links on the page don't have the normal underline under them any more, but a weird "blood smirch" that I cranked out in Fireworks.  It's not too detailed because it's only 4 pixels high, but it adds a cool effect to the text, I think.

Berta and Abby went out to A.C.Moore last night and bought me a large piece of blue poster card.  I set up the ninja on this late last night and took a couple of pictures in really bad lighting.  It only took a few minutes to get a decent-looking knockout with the blue background removed.  I didn't spend too much more time on it because the lighting was very obviously inferior to the pictures I had taken outdoors, and I had already put the hours of work into the ninja guy already on the site.

I'm thinking about including a few more ninja pictures, and after I work out the last few layout glitches, I'll be offering some alternative skins for you frequent visitors to choose from.  W00t!  Geeky goodness.