Shorten The Road

Do you live in a city with a large amount of drug users? Oregon State University scientists may be able to tell you. The scientists have conducted tests in 10 cities. These cities have not been identified to preserve the relationship the scientists have with the sewer treatment plants. The number one drug found was caffeine… Shocker!

http://www.townhall.com/news/sci-tech/2007/08/21/scientists_drug-test_whole_cities

How great is this? Community drug tests. I think they should implement a testing facility in Washington D.C. It might help explain the sorry state they are in. Perhaps they could narrow the tests to the waste lines of the government buildings, such as the capital and the white house.

I would wonder what the results would show if almost everyone in the community consumed a large amount of poppy seed bagels…

Time to take a break and play a game. Here is an old link in my favorites. Enjoy!

http://www.widro.com/throwpaper.html

This is a great game for conference calls that you need to pay attention to, but not a primary participant. Although I try to multi-task on conference calls, there are a few calls that need a little more attention which disrupts the multi-tasking, but does not require enough attention to keep me fully engaged. This is a nice lite-weight distraction.

Getting on a plane and you have not caught up on all the Shorten the Road posts? Or by some small chance you have other websites you frequent in which you are not up to date on? HTTrack is a neat little utility which will help you browser websites offline.

http://www.httrack.com/

HTTrack helps you facilitate downloading WWW sites into a local directory on your computer. It even has options to help you streamline your downloads; for example you can choose to exclude or include links based on a variety criterion.

Best use of urine since the Danny (Brad Savage) urinated into the truck’s radiator while escaping from the Soviets in Red Dawn. Years ago scientists have made recharging a battery with urine a reality. In fact, many other bodily fluids can be used including blood, tears, and semen. The current challenge is to create biochips with this rechargeable technology small enough to implant into the body to help fight/treat diseases. Image a biochip that monitors for any deficiencies in the body and triggers different organs to react appropriately.

Here is a short article from National Geographic on the subject:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0818_050818_urinebattery.html

This puts a new spin on going green. We should look to colleges to power our cities. As students ‘relieve’ themselves from their academic pursuits by partaking the in the social aspects of drinking, their reusable energy should be harnessed to power their campus and local cities.

You might have a lawsuit! Four states are introducing legislation which will specify standards of behavior that would justify a lawsuit against your boss. I have always heard that people don’t leave companies, they leave bosses. I wonder if this phrase will change after the new legesiation is introduced to people never leave companies, because their bosses are so nice.

I’m so glad my government is not working on reducing the bloated spending; I so enjoy paying more and more taxes with nothing in return. This legislation is just what the nation needs.

Maybe there are too many ambulance chasers. This legislation my start a whole new industry, jerky boss chasers. All you need to do is seek out and acquire a position with bad a boss. Once in the position, record all interactions with him or her. As soon as you have a few recorded ‘choice’ incidents, begin the law preceedings. Hmmm, this might be a good way to supplement your income.

A new page has been added to my Blog site: Marty’s TV
A link to the page can be found in the ‘Pages’ menu.

I have created an account on MeeVee to track my favorite television shows. Utilizing the tools available on MeeVee and Feedburner, I have created a RSS feed that will dynamically update the page on daily basis. You will see a schedule of my favorite programs for the day. I have also included options for subscribing to to the feed.

In September 2005, 4 million players were infected with a virus in the online realm of “World of Warcraft.” Quarantine areas were circumvented by infected players, cities became uninhabitable and were abandoned, and players avoided large groups. The game never recovered. Blizzard, the game’s creator, had to reset the game to eliminate the outbreak.

Since then, this scenario has been studied by various groups including the CDC (Center of Disease Control), to determine how a real epidemic would spread. I was inspired to post this article, because almost two years later, I heard a BBC report on it. An August 22, 2007 yahoo news search for ‘Warcraft virus’, returned 30 articles for the month of August 2007. One of my favorite headlines from that search was ‘Nerd Plague to Save the World.’

So, the next time you are being nagged by your spouse or significant other to stop playing your games, remind them the important role you are ‘playing’ in saving their lives and the lives of the human race.