Completely Random Thoughts

[Pastor of Muppets]

I still can't crack 60% on Jeopardy practice tests.  Maybe because, while I've been taking a ton of notes, I haven't really been studying them.

A thought I just had? 

I meant consistently.  And I should be honest; the primary reason I do 60% is that while I have taken a lot of notes, I have not studied them.

There's a site, j-archive.com, which archives every single game since the first Alex Trebek episode back in 1984.  You can replay the game for fun.  It shows the game board like on the show, with the clue, and reveals the correct response when you mouse over it.  Very useful for practice, but even more useful is the search function which lets me run a query like "mountains" or "bodies of water"  and see hundreds of clues related to that.  Or at least with that keyword in it.  When I searched "rivers", I got a lot of clues about Joan Rivers.  This tool has been useful to see which lakes, rivers, mountains, presidents etc., come up often.  Some obscure river that flows through Moldova won't come up, but something like the Danube comes up often.

[Susquehanna-2222]

I still can't crack 60% on Jeopardy practice tests.  Maybe because, while I've been taking a ton of notes, I haven't really been studying them.

I got 11 out of 20 pretty drunk.  I think I would have gotten 4 more if I was sober.  That was fun.  I do better when I'm watching with others so I can show off.  I think I'd get maybe 1 in front of a studio audience lol.

[Pastor of Muppets]

This is one of my favorite riffs, from "To Catch a Yeti".  It never gets old.

[Pastor of Muppets]

I have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents and so on, with the number of ancestors doubling with every generation.  With this exponential growth, after 40 generations, I have over a trillion ancestors.  And 40 generations is only 1,000 years (assuming a generation is 25 years).  That would mean my ancestors outnumber the total number of people who have ever lived (estimated to be around 117 billion).

My conclusion makes no sense, but I cannot figure out the flaw.

[Edward J Grug III]

I have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents and so on, with the number of ancestors doubling with every generation.  With this exponential growth, after 40 generations, I have over a trillion ancestors.  And 40 generations is only 1,000 years (assuming a generation is 25 years).  That would mean my ancestors outnumber the total number of people who have ever lived (estimated to be around 117 billion).

My conclusion makes no sense, but I cannot figure out the flaw.

Your ancestors start to be related to you multiple times the further along the line you go - Hopefully not too closely related

[Pastor of Muppets]

I have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents and so on, with the number of ancestors doubling with every generation.  With this exponential growth, after 40 generations, I have over a trillion ancestors.  And 40 generations is only 1,000 years (assuming a generation is 25 years).  That would mean my ancestors outnumber the total number of people who have ever lived (estimated to be around 117 billion).

My conclusion makes no sense, but I cannot figure out the flaw.

Your ancestors start to be related to you multiple times the further along the line you go - Hopefully not too closely related

Yes that makes sense now.  My parents are not related.  My 4 grandparents are not related.  Two of my 8 great grandparents might be related, but probably not.  I can see how the probability of some relation, even a distant one, could happen somewhere up the line.  Like maybe my mother's father's mother's father's father's father is the same person as my father's father's father's mother's mother's father.  Looks like my error was in assuming that, as you move up the family tree, all the ancestors would be unique people.

[Cyrusso]

I got 11 out of 20 pretty drunk.  I think I would have gotten 4 more if I was sober.  That was fun.  I do better when I'm watching with others so I can show off.  I think I'd get maybe 1 in front of a studio audience lol.

Funny Coincidence, I was recently watching Brad Jones' review of The Babe Ruth story, and the movie opens in the Susquehanna Valley.

[Pastor of Muppets]

On Sunday I'm going to see my sister for the first time in 8 years.  It's not that we have any bad blood between us.  We both lived in different parts of the country from the rest of the family, and we were never back home at the same time.  Well now I've moved to the east coast after being in the Midwest since 2016.  She's still living in the south like she has for 21 years, but her annual visit comes up in the middle of summer.

[Pastor of Muppets]

I got a possum in my house.  I was leaning back in my living room recliner around 4 AM Sunday morning and saw this weird little black and white thing creeping around.  My cat Shikaree is black and white so thought it was her for a second, then I thought it was a huge rat, but then it registered with me that this thing's face and ears were all wrong for a rat.  It's small for a possum though.  It might just be a baby.

I was pretty jittery yesterday.  My cats would jump into my lap or enter the room and I'd get spooked.  I got a trap at Home Depot early in the morning and baited it with some grape jelly.  The critter sprung the trap about 3:45 this morning.  Now he's in there, eyes wide open and shaking with fear.  One of my sisters is supposed to come over this evening to take it away and release it onto some nature preserve near her house. 

[Pastor of Muppets]

Found a second one of the little bastards last night.  Trapped him quickly.  Hopefully that's the last one.

[RVR II]

Caught many Possums and Raccoons around my place over the years..
Possums are a lot easier to deal with than Raccoons. Those bastards will claw the shit out of anything they can grab at through the cage! 

[Pastor of Muppets]

Open enrollment for 2025 health insurance.  It started at work on Monday, and started on healthcare.gov today.  In the past, I've just accepted the group health plan I get through work.  It's normally pretty good, but I wanted to get bariatric surgery.  I'm about 150 pounds overweight and I just can't seem to find a way to commit to any kind of diet or exercise program long term.  Those new semaglutide drugs seemed promising at first, but no health care plan on the planet will cover them and the cost is like $1500 a month.  The plan documents for my corporate health plan specifically exclude bariatric surgery.  I guess the company has to pay extra to get that covered and they didn't feel like it.

I ended up buying a pretty high tier plan -- Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Gold Premier with Dental and Vision.  Gonna cost me about $705 a month but on the upside the deductible is low and the actual medical costs look like simple copays for things like hospital stay and surgeon fees.  I could have gone with a Platinum plan, but the decrease in out of pocket expenses wasn't worth the extra $150 a month in premiums.  I figure I can handle higher premiums for a year then go back on the corporate plan a year from now.

[Pastor of Muppets]

I had an endoscopy today.  That anesthesia is a wild experience.  You go to sleep, but don't really sense it.  It's more like you're sitting there with an oxygen mask over your face one second, then the next second you are slowly drifting back into reality through what feels like a mixture of dreams and reality.  Like, with normal sleep, I am usually aware that I fell asleep because the process is gradual and I have dreams.  This, I just toggled on and off between sleep and wakefulness.

I thought I'd have a really sore throat but that didn't really happen. I do have a terrible headache tonight though.

[Cyrusso]

I've been wanting to make this music video for years... finally here it is a music video for ROTOR!

Super late to the party I know considering it's already July 2025. Hope you're all doing well💙