Raccoon Menace

looks like other people are having issues too

Surfango + Lake Geneva

There's this company called Surfango (they have a website) that makes motorized kayaks and surfboards. They had a product launch party this weekend at Lake Geneva, and guess what? I went! These things are really fun - the kayak is controlled via a joystick and is really stable, fun, and fast. But what I was interested in, of course, was the motorized surfboard.

Wow! Everyone knows I've always wanted to surf, and this counts as pretty close. True there are no waves, but you are standing there going pretty fast and the wakes get you some air. Actually, riding the motorized surfboard is a little physically challenging (which I liked) and I was quite tired after about 30 minutes. The reason I was out there so long was because I didn't wear my glasses and got lost. There was a tent on the beach we were at that they took down, and I spent a good deal of time looking for the "beach with the tent". The demo guys were a little peeved that I hogged so much time, but it wasn't my fault! Check out their website if you like lakes.

65951 is a Prime Number

So I was looking for some fun last night and decided to factorize my phone number (w/o area code) into prime numbers. I thought this would be easy, but sure enough there is a 5 digit prime number that divides evenly into my phone number. To verify primeness I had to figure out all the primes up to the square root of 65951 (approx 256) and then do the math. It took me a couple hours, and had I known it was prime in the first place I would have been more meticulous in generating my list for future reference. I was working under the assumption that it was not prime. Anyways, for those of you who know my number the other two prime factors should be easy to find.

Amateur Science Experiment

I read a recent study that claims women and men both talk the same amount, that is, use roughly 16,000 words per day. This opinion piece by Steve Chapman says [paraphrase] "No way!" I am inclined to agree. So today I did an experiment on the train. The train was full and I decided to as quickly as I can count how many men were talking and how many women. To minimize error I did this as quickly as I could, so that I didn't count both people in a conversation that was being dominated by one party. The result: 12 women talking; 2 men. That's what I expected, I did not think at the time to count the number of women and men to make sure this result wasn't just a corollary of there being more women than men. My rough estimate was that ratios were fairly close to 1:1. This result might be simply explained by the fact that a larger number of men travel alone, while women almost never do; making it more likely that they will talk with people they are comfortable with. Or maybe women just talk more.

Mission Accomplished

So remember way back when I said I had some comedy goals before leaving for LA? Well the Zanies talent booker said I was too inexperienced for their club, but they had a tent at the taste of Chicago! With an open mic! It's not the real thing, but I'll take it. I just performed about 1 hour ago and it went pretty well. They have three more shows tomorrow and I am seriously considering going to all three. Also, it broadened my horizons in other ways. Here are the following things that made this show very unique and nothing like I have ever done before:

It was at 3pm outside in a tent. Getting a sober audience is a bigger challenge, but for my humor I think it helps me. And sunlight!

You are only allowed 3 minutes. This is about half the time I am used to, but in a way it is really good. The audience stuck with me the entire time which is unusual for an open mic.

There was a real audience, instead of just comics. Right on!

That's it. Professional news is not as good, but is a long story that deserves its own post maybe next week.