Aaron Traffas

Tell Brownback to Denounce Lou Engle

I wish there was someone who could defeat Sam Brownback for Kansas Governor.

More here:

http://www.ksdp.org/petitionsam

The Star Trek glory shelf

I’m relaxing with Diane on a Tuesday evening, working on putting the wraps on a nasty cold that kept me home from work yesterday. I’m trying to figure out if it’s possible to do my taxes before the summer comes this year. It’s six-to-five and pick ‘em as to whether it’ll happen or not.

I’ve been relatively worthless with blogging and booking. If you feel like guest-blogging or booking some shows for me, feel free.

Diane and I went down to see the Cowboy Dave Band at Longhorns last Thursday. Cowboy Dave used to front FortyTwenty, and now has a very traditional-yet-edgy western country band. We had a blast, and will look forward to the next opportunity we get to see them.

G and I are playing a show in McPherson on Friday at Z’s Club. Stop by if you’re in the area.

Tonight I became super fan of a guy named Cory Branan. Check out his performance of Miss Ferguson from Letterman.  Here are the words or you can download the whole song for free from last.fm.

Diane and I finished our bookshelf. It’s only crooked if you look at it with a tape measure. I think our next project will be a couple of matching nightstands. I’m going to build mine with a cup holder….maybe two.

My typewriter is too loud

This is what it was like when our parents went to college.

Student Brings Typewriter To Class – Watch more Funny Videos

CAPTCHA FAIL

This was the CAPTCHA presented to my mother upon attempting to sign up for her Twitter account.

moar funny pictures

Magnets

Ferromagnetism describes the property of some metals to exhibit interactions with magnets. Steel is ferromagnetic, aluminum isn’t. That’s why you can stick a magnet to a refrigerator but not to a beer can.

Magnetic field strength is measured using a unit called the Tesla. A refrigerator magnet has the strength of 5 milliteslas. MRI machines have been tested beyond 8 Teslas.

The iron in our blood isn’t ferromagnetic. It doesn’t respond to magnets. In fact, there isn’t anything in our body that’s ferromagnetic. If there were things in our bodies that responded to magnets, we couldn’t use an MRI machine for human diagnostics.

Next time you see someone with a glorified refrigerator magnet strapped to her wrist, think about how silly it is to think that wearing such a magnet could have any possible physiological effect. Even though it’s silly to think this, considering that science tells us it’s absurd, this concept has generated studies just in case we don’t understand something about magnets and our bodies. Don’t worry, science understands magnets and our bodies just fine, and wearing magnets doesn’t have any effect on the body.

If physics and anatomy were more widely understood, predatory scam artists would have much less luck swindling the gullible into purchasing, among other things, magnets for medical uses.

Senator Franken destroys attourney

Al Franken was a comic and an author. I’ve enjoyed listening to every book of his I’ve had the opportunity to get as an audio book.

He’s a senator now, and a badass. This video is from dailykos.com and is worth the 10 minutes to watch Franken rip to shreds this attorney who is defending binding arbitration in the case of sexual assault.

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NAA Trustee and BOD joint session

I returned today from a two-day sojourn to Kansas City. Yesterday was an all-day National Auctioneers Association Education Institute Board of Trustees meeting. Today was a joint session with us and the Board of Directors.

I’ve taken to announcing myself by saying ‘Hi’ in the style of Buzz Burbank, newsman from the old Mike O’Meara Show, which itself was formally the Don and Mike Show. In any case, yesterday during roll call I said ‘Hi’ which was mistaken by the rest of the trustees as ‘Aye’ said in the style of a pirate. It’s amazing how quickly my ‘Hi’ became ‘Arrrrrrrg’, the new way to take role in professional organizations. It may take me a while to live that down.

Winter, Stargate, Dexter, Twitalytic

What happened to fall? It seems as though winter has befallen us, without more than a week or so of temperate weather.

I’ve endured the freeze warning safe from the comfort of my desk, where I’ve been coding all day long in my underwear. I took a break for a few hours to watch Stargate, and I have no idea why I’d never seen it before. It is was a great work of science fiction, and seeing James Spader play a dorky hieroglyphs expert was an comical change from the poon-hound he’s been playing until recently as Alan Shore on Boston Legal. I’m looking forward to starting Stargate SG-1, though I’m nervous about a ten-season series.

After the movie, I started coding and watching Showtime‘s Dexter on Netflix. I had no idea what the series was about, so the subject matter came as somewhat of a shock. It’s a fascinating little series which I’ll probably use as something to watch while I work.

I’ve got Twitalytic installed, thanks to some recent updates which reduced the complexities to within my skillset. Now you view over a year’s worth of tweets on one page. It also has the benefit of caching not only my tweets, but also those of my friends, so that should something ever happen to the service, they’ll be safe and sound on my new server at Media Temple.

Tomorrow I’ll be off to Kansas City for a two-day meeting with the National Auctioneers Association Education Institute trustees.

Aaron’s recent posts

Fair and balanced

In the last video we posted, CNN covered how Fox promotes the protests of our administration rather than covers them. CNN thinks there’s an important distinction, and I can’t help but agree.

Today’s nugget features proof that Fox not only promotes the protests, but they attempt to exacerbate them. The lady in the green is a Fox producer.

Thanks to Valleywag for providing more Fox coverage that makes you wonder why self-respecting person would watch Fox News or believe thier propaganda.