Song of the Day: "A Question Mark"

A column about music, and about how the music informs our lives. Today's author is Joe. See the previous songs HERE.

"A Question Mark"

Elliott Smith

from XO

1998

I'll often eulogize a blog column in this space and then go back on my eulogy by writing another entry in that column, so don't take me at my word on this one, but I'm pretty sure that sporadically updated Five Questions column on PoYB is dead. Here's the tag if you wanna look at old entries, but if not, here's the general premise: Joe turns what should be some pretty simple google searches into a whole damn blog post.

This goes back to the "Boy in the Box Blogging Theory," in that there needs to be Something Else in each blog post for that post to be successful. You can't just write about information that you find on the internet; you have to instead write about why that information is important to you. You gotta find thematic relevance. Five Questions doesn't do that, and so it's fallen by the wayside.

Just as a real funeral will often consider rituals that the deceased held close and then attempt to continue those rituals for at least one more day ("Rob always loved his Diet Cokes, here's one for each of ya!"), I am going to quickly answer Five Questions' final five questions below. I don't feel like making an icon for it on Microsoft Paint like I usually would. I'm just going to answer the damn questions, and then you can continue about your day, unchanged that it is after putting to rest one of your favorite blog's least successful functions.

1. Is it more cost-efficient (re: gas usage and paying for gas) to use the car's air conditioning, or drive with the windows down?

The general consensus, as far as I can find (and to be clear, I only looked on a thread in the r/frugal subreddit), is that the faster you're driving, the more likely it is that AC is the better option. This is due to the wind resistance increase at high speeds. A few caveats with this answer though. One is that the difference financially might be insignificant enough that it really doesn't fucking matter. Two is that the color of the car (light vs. dark) might actually have a bigger effect on internal temperatures than anything else. Three is that sometimes there isn't much of a choice anyway, like say you are the same as me and Pam and don't have any money and are spending an entire summer driving around in a black Kia Sportage whose air conditioning doesn't work and that particular fix is at the very bottom of a very long list of expensive fixes that have simultaneously revealed themselves in the first half of the same summer.

2. Do football players need to pay for their own equipment??

Logically—or illogically, depending on how worn out you are from our late-stage capitalistic society—it would track if the richest athletes did not have the pay and the lower-paid athletes were on the hook. General googling around indicates that this is probably the case. Teams have "team equipment" but you are paying extra if you need extra. A girlfriend of an NFL player posted on TikTok in 2023 a video about how much her boyfriend was paying for equipment, and it was in the six figures. Of course, there are also sponsorships, so the elite aren't paying shit. Same story as it ever was, man.

3. What's the deal with Roy Rogers restaurants almost exclusively being found in PA Turnpike rest stops???

I am purposefully avoiding google's stupid-ass AI option at the top of each search, both out of moral responsibility and because they are very often trafficking some soft-ass bullshit. The answer that AI gives for this one is "primarily due to their accessibility and appeal for travelers seeking convenient meal options during road trips." Fuck off with that spon-con shit. Big Fast Food is financially backing this search, eh?

I hate to say it, but in piecing together a few news stories and a few baffled reddit threads, it's looking like the answer is: nostalgia. Now, the actual answer might be "Parent company Hardee's has a contract with PenDOT" or some shit, but the question I'm asking is "why Roy Rogers still?" and that answer is because "it's always been." Everyone can agree the food is dogshit, but I guess enough people remember the fast food from back in the day in their neighborhood, plus another sizeable faction of people are eating their dry-ass burgers while all giddy on the drive to vacation, that they now have staying power.

To be fair, I do have specific memories of eating Roy Rogers when there used to be one at like 2nd and Olney. This was when I was real little. But maybe I missed the mark, nostalgically speaking, because I feel nothing for this shit. Hence the confusion on my part. But now there's a RR coming to Cherry Hill, far from the highway, and so I guess we're stuck with these fuckers for a while now.

4. Is it okay for the environment if you burn leaves????

Not that we have the space to burn leaves on our own property, but the thought does cross my mind from time to time. We've recently been dumping all our mowed grass in the expansive property behind ours, the one that pisses me off a lot, and just recently added a shitty-looking fence. There's space between the cement and the gate on their property that has a lot of decomposing grass now. Whoops.

Assuming I cannot do the same for the leaves in a couple months, could I burn them? Easy answer: no. Shit's bad for the environment. It releases toxins into the air. Which seems crazy to me, since leaves are as natural as they come, so where are the toxins coming from? Of course, I am not RFK, because I believe in and trust science, and science says that it's not good, so I'll never do it. I'll just let the leaves decompose on other people's property.

5. If a really big monster or giant or whatever attacked our city, would its movement look really slow from our perspective like it sometimes does in the movies?????

This is the most conceptual question today, and I don't know if I did the thought justice. Picture a movie like this, though. Godzilla or some shit like that. Imagine looking at the monster from the perspective of a civilian on the street ten miles away. You can see the monster clearly from there because it is so huge, 100-stories tall. And it's punching a building with its fists. In this movie, from your POV, the monster is moving at like 50% speed, right? Compared to if you, a regular-sized being, were to punch a wall right now. Am I going crazy, or is this a thing? Am I doing a bad job explaining what I'm trying to ask?

Let me try to google it anyway. Thankfully, as is often the case with the internet, I discover that I am not a unique snowflake and that other weirdos wile away the hours thinking about the laws of physics without knowing anything about physics beyond "monster look slow." I found some videos! They both have to do with the "square-cube law," in which volume increases at an exponentially greater rate when you increase length and surface area. Here's one that explains the law, using Godzilla as a reference point. And here's one that speaks specifically about why larger objects both would appear slower and are actually slower.

Will I ever think about the square-cube law again? I am actually assuming that I will probably think about the square-cube law every day for the rest of my life. But more pertinent to what we are doing here today though—should I have blogged about the square-cube law? Meh. Probably not. Though maybe one day I can use it in service of putting Something Else into an album review or whatever.

Five Questions: October 2023

Joe answers five questions that he wondered aloud to himself throughout the month.

1. What was Muggsy Bogues' deal, i.e. was he legitimately short, or just shorter than other NBA players?

I wasn't really "into" sports in the '90s, and really the only reason I was aware of Muggsy Bogues' existence was because of Space Jam. And that's a cartoon, so, like, who knew whether they were exaggerating Bogues' height or what.

But no, he really was that short. At five-foot-three, he was and is the shortest NBA player in history. I myself am thirteen inches taller than him! And, funny enough, the dude who was then the tallest person in NBA history, Manute Bol (7'7), was on the Bullets with him. Here's a good picture.

What's crazy is that, despite the insane height difference between Muggsy Bogues and literally everyone he played basketball with, the dude by all accounts was an all-star athlete. He's still in the Top 20 for highest assists-per-game average all-time. In '93-'94, he was averaging a double-double per game. Dude could jump 44 inches into the air, and even at that height, could almost dunk the ball.

I don't think we'll ever see someone Bogues' height in the NBA ever again. But you never know. I love learning about weird shit like this re: sports. The daily grind of being a sports fan is too much for me, and I usually dip out more often than not. But reading about some 5'3 dude in the '90s who was still making the occasional block and scoring 11 points per game, still, despite (as he put it in the title of his autobiography) living "in the land of giants"? That pulls me back in and gets me excited.

2. Why did Brisk ice tea always make my mouth feel dry??

 

This was something I haven't thought about in maybe 20 years, even though it was for some reason important to me when I was a kid. Do they still sell Brisk iced tea? Probably. If they do, though, it's way less prevalent than it was in the '90s (or I'm spending significantly less time in the sugared drinks aisle at the supermarket). This was something I always said about Brisk: I disliked it because it made my mouth have this really weird, dry aftertaste. I forget if this was something that only I felt or if it was a common occurrence. It's been decades since I've had Brisk iced tea to drink at all, so who knows.

Thinking about it now, though, and I can still taste whatever that was. Well, what was it? Some explanations say that there are tannins in strong teas that can up the astringency levels in your mouth, so maybe Brisk had tannins? Could also be artificial sweeteners or citric acid causing the dryness. But it's probably just something to do with what type of tea leaves are used, how many tannins are in there, and that particular combo in Brisk specifically that got my goat. I don't plan on testing the theory any time soon.

 

3. Can you build a car from scratch???

 

I have no interest in cars or building a car or honestly even driving a car at this point. I would describe my relationship with cars as antagonistic at best. And yet still I spend a decent amount of time in cars, and so of course my mind is going to wander a bit from time to time. Say I had unlimited money, unlimited time, and unlimited resources, both equipment-wise and knowledge-wise (from books or from other people), could I legitimate start with scrap metal and build my own car that could legally and safely drive on a public road?

Even in this hypothetical, in which all of a sudden I know where the pieces go and where to buy those pieces and have the money to buy those pieces and so on, I think the big trip-up is going to be rules and law. Like, I'm assuming that there is a regulatory body somewhere that has to say "Yes, this car is fit for the road." Some guy on Quora said that he built a car, and that an engineer had to test it for two days on a stress track, whatever the fuck that means.

Reddit says the laws vary by state, so I googled PA states laws regarding car kits (to get me pointed in the right direction). Sure enough, here is a handy cheat sheet from our "GOOD FRIENDS" at PennDOT. It really is as simple as getting it tested, and keeping your documentation in order. I wonder how many cars fail inspection, and what it would take to fail. Just one screw loose? Or would the car have to burst into flames for it to fail? Probably the former, but just in case... I'm taking the bus.

 

4. What is the math behind bowling a 300, like where does that number come from????

 

Everyone once in a while, I ask a question in this semi-regular column that probably seems laughably simple to everyone else, and really is only asked here because of one simple misunderstanding. Once I clear the misunderstanding, I regret the question. So be it!

I wasn't a regular bowler at any stage of my life. I've probably gone to the bowling alley three times in the past twelve years. But in grade school, it seemed to be a birthday party idea that popped up among my friend group more often than not. I would say that I've probably been bowling 40 times in my life. I broke a triple-digit score exactly one of those times (that's 40 trips times an average of 2.5 games per trip, so one out of one hundred games).

In other words, I have no aspirations toward bowling greatness, and a zero-percent chance of every bowling a 300. But I have been in bowling alleys enough times to at least be aware of the existence of the 300 game. And, I know that strikes and spares are 10 points plus additional points in the next shot(s). So what was the misconception?

At some point, I was told that if you get a strike, the next frame counts toward that strike's total (and a spare meant that the first half of the next frame counted toward that total). Which is not technically wrong in many cases, especially for someone like me. If I roll a strike in the first frame, and then a 6 and a 2 in the second frame, then we add the 6 and the 2 to the 10 and that strike in the first frame ends up being worth 18 points.

But what I was missing for all these years up until right this fucking second is that it's not just the two shots in the next frame that are added to the strike, it's the next two shots total. Which means that if you get a strike in the first frame, and then a strike in the second frame, then the second shot added to that first strike is going to be the first (or only) shot in the third frame. So then that means that the first strike could be worth as much as 30 points. I never knew the difference because the chances of me getting three strikes in a row were basically nil.

And then of course there's the whole issue with the final frame, but that was never my question. Yes, I know that if you hit a strike in the tenth frame, then you get two extra shots, which could be strikes as well. I guess the only thing to remember here is that those two bonus strikes don't necessarily act like regular strikes. They aren't 10+x points. They are just extra points added to that original strike in the tenth frame. And that original strike will be worth 30 points like all the others if you get three strikes total in the tenth frame.

The question that will never be answered is: did someone give me bad information at some point in my youth, or was I just at an age where I would misunderstand something like that, and the misunderstanding stuck until I was deep into adulthood?

 

5. How do you get the two different numbers for blood pressure, and what do those numbers mean?????

 

This has become a topic of discussion in my household recently, mainly because my life partner's blood pressure is up for mysterious reasons, and no amount of low-salt dieting makes it budge, and her response to these types of stressors is to buy equipment from Amazon, and so we now have a blood pressure monitor in the house that beeps and speaks in robotic ESL tones. I don't have any issues with blood pressure myself, but I find myself wondering how it works, and how it's measured. (Pam is a great medical professional, so great that I really don't understand anything she says when she tries to explain shit like this, so here I am.)

First, very briefly—what is blood pressure? It's the pressure that the blood puts on the arteries when its pumping through the body. The danger of high blood pressure is that it could damage those arteries, which means that the blood is pumping through at a slower rate, which means that the heart is getting less oxygen at a slower pace, which eventually causes heart disease. You don't want that.

To answer the actual question, there are two numbers in a blood pressure measurement. The top one is your systolic blood pressure, and the bottom one is your diastolic blood pressure. I've been told those terms before, but what I struggle with is what they mean. Because all I get when I try to search for this kind of stuff is what the "normal" levels of each are. I'm interested in the why, though. Why is 120/80 normal? What the fuck are "120" and "80" even referring to?

It's taking me a weirdly long time to find out the information here. Okay, there is plenty of info about systolic being the pressure when the heart contracts (and pumps blood through the arteries), and diastolic being the pressure when the heart relaxes (and pulls blood through from the veins). But why 120? Where does that number come from when we are measuring the "pressure" in the artery when the heart contracts? That's what I'm having trouble with.

The number is mmHg. What's that? "Millimeters of mercury." It says here that, before fancy blood pressure monitors were invented, there would literally be a tube of mercury, and it would rise a certain number of mm depending on how high the pressure was in the blood. And even though they don't use mercury anymore because it's dangerous, the unit of measurement is still used, basically because those are the numbers that people have always used. There are easier units, such as Pascals, but people would get too confused if they here that their systolic blood pressure is 15998.7 Pascals. Here's a video of a mercury cylinder used to measure pressure.

Any further into the depths of the hows and whys of measurement and I start to get confused, but I think I'm satisfied here. You don't want high blood pressure because it damages arteries. You measure blood pressure to check to make sure your arteries aren't at risk. The unit of measurement is millimeters of mercury. It's called that because they used to literally see how far mercury would be pushed up a cylinder to measure that pressure.

There are plenty of other questions I could go into at this juncture, but where do you think you are? This isn't a medical blog. This is a blog about listening to music and farting emo nostalgia.

Five Questions, May 2023

Joe answers five questions that he wondered aloud to himself throughout the month. Ideally, I'd tend the 5Qs garden every month, but in practice, I end up answering five questions maybe once a year tops, i.e. whenever I think of the fifth question and write it on the phone memo.

1) How do they keep things fair at the Special Olympics when there are so many different types of disabilities?

Hopping in a taxi and screaming, "to Wikipedia, and step on it!" The first thing I learned on Wikipedia is that I'm mixing up two completely different organizations. The Special Olympics are for athletes with intellectual disabilities, and the Paralympic Games are for athletes with physical disabilities. The Special Olympics do not, as far as I can tell, have different classifications of athletes or disabilities, and those who compete are there for the physical, emotional, and psychological health benefits.

The Paralympic Games are more focused on the competitions, and thus have divisions and subdivisions. The six divisions are wheelchair, amputee, visually impaired, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability (so, there is crossover between Special Olympics and Paralympic Games), and les autres (those disabilities that do not fit into the other five divisions, e.g. dwarfism), and subdivisions are based on severity of disability.

Look—I figured it was fair, and this question was never because I thought it might not be. I was mainly just curious as to how they made the competitions fair, and it seems that it's fair enough that everyone is having a good time.

2) How does a garbage disposal guarantee that your drain isn't going to get clogged with food??

For most of my sad life of ignorance, I assumed that the big thing attached the bottom of the garbage disposal was a food holder, and that you would have to occasionally empty it so that the garbage disposal wouldn't become too full to work. That was stupid; this is not what the question is about. I'm mostly wondering, like, what prevents food too big from getting shoved into the drain and clogging it? It's not like the disposal grinds up every piece of food perfectly every single time.

Yes, the motor grinds up the food, but here's the key piece of new (to me) information: it doesn't go directly from blade to pipe. Instead, the blades (which really aren't sharp, they just move really quickly) grind the food and push it to the outer edge of the grinding area, where there are tiny little holes. The food must be small enough to get through the hole before it gets to the exit pipe. This ensures that the food is small enough and does no clogging.

3) Why does placing a finger under my nose seem to stop a sneeze 99% of the time???

I'm not asking about the act of closing your nose and mouth while you sneeze in an errant attempt to stifle said sneeze. That's fucking dangerous, don't be an idiot and try it. No, I'm talking about simply placing one single finger (usually the index finger) under your nose, gently, during that pre-sneeze sensation when you just know you're gonna sneeze in the next few seconds.

Have you ever tried it? Usually works for me. Not that I'm stopping a sneeze too often. I think sneezing feels great. It's cathartic. Maybe I feel that way because I've always had a loud sneeze, and I also crave attention. Anyway, the one context in which I stop the sneeze with the finger maneuver is when I'm peeing. I have no idea if this is a male-only thing, or if females and non-binary individuals get this as well, but sneezing when you're in the middle of peeing is truly awful, like your penis is going to pop like a balloon.

Okay, so, why? The answer is pretty simple—it's all about distraction. There's a nerve in your nose called the maxillary nerve, and its stimulation is what you feel in the moments before you sneeze. That sensation is the maxillary nerve sending a signal to the brain that it's almost time to sneeze. When you place a finger on your upper lip, basically what you're doing is pressing on a different nerve, and distracting your brain from the signal that it had previously received from the maxillary. It doesn't even have to be that specific upper-lip nerve. Apparently pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth will do the trick too. I'll have to try that one next time I'm against the urinal.

4) Does a lightsaber just cut things, or could you theoretically use one to make an entire object disappear????

Hopping in a taxi and screaming, "to Wookieepedia, and step on it!" Willow has sporadically been into Return of the Jedi recently, and I was thinking about lightsabers. We mostly see the weapon used to cut things in half, but they are pretty beefy cuts. Luke's whole fucking hand gets chopped by Vader's lightsaber, and it's so hot that it doesn't even bleed. My question is whether it's like a sword in that it splits something in two, or if it's so powerful that it makes pieces of that something disappear.

I'm going to take a reddit thread seriously, so I'm sorry in advance. But I assume anyone who writes in r/AskScienceFiction is going to know what they are talking about. This OP asks about cooking bacon with a lightsaber, the top answer is that you couldn't touch the bacon directly because it would be "vaporized." If I'm taking that literally, then we can assume that a lightsaber is so hot that it literally makes shit disappear (i.e. turn into a vapor and float off into the sky).

I dunno... I mean, I realize this is all fictional anyway, but I just wanted to know if... let's say Luke actually killed Yoda instead of Yoda dying of old age, and that whole "disappearing" thing was actually faked, and Luke just got rid of the body. Could Luke use his lightsaber and methodically use it on Yoda's corpse inch by inch so that the entire body was vaporized and there was no evidence of the murder? I'm just speaking hypothetically here. It sounds plausible, though.

5) Why does bleu cheese that comes with wings, like at a restaurant or a bar or whatever, taste so different than the bleu cheese that you'd buy at the supermarket to use as a salad dressing?????

Okay, for this one, I'm more focused on the validity of the question than the actual answer. You want the answer? Here you go: YES there's a fucking difference. You may not have noticed before, but I have. I have lived my entire life knowing that the bleu cheese you get as a side with buffalo wings is different than the bleu cheese you buy in a bottle and keep in your refrigerator. The difference is taste, consistency, texture, chunkiness, ingredients, fucking everything about it.

But the question is important too. I finally looked up the answer for this blog post, and I'm glad I'm not going crazy, because every time I posed the question for the past twenty years, I've been looked at like I'm a fucking lunatic, like I'm posing some nutso conspiracy theory. "Just grab some more from the fridge," I'm told, after we run out of the small measure of bleu cheese provided for the takeout wings, "it's the same thing, isn't it?" No, it isn't, you buffoon.

One time I was bringing wings to my parents house for a family gathering. I was walking up the front steps, and in the act of brushing away the spiderweb that hangs over the top step every single time I have crossed the threshold in the past two decade of my life, I dropped the bleu cheese. "We have some in the fridge, it's all good," says my mother. No, you don't, and no, it's not. So I call Hollywood Tavern, and ask them, can I have a pint of bleu cheese? And they are like, what? Just bleu cheese? The bartender couldn't believe it. They refused to believe that it was worth going to a fucking dive bar for bleu cheese rather than go across the street to the Giant to get some.

No one believes me. But it's true. you know that now. You either did the research on your own, or you trusted the blog that you've read every day for the past fifteen years. The matter is settled. There are different kinds of bleu cheese. Don't back down! Stand your ground! Demand the right bleu cheese for your hot wings!

Five Questions, September 2022

Joe answers five questions that he wondered aloud to himself throughout the month.

1) How the fuck is a NASCAR race in any way fair when some cars have to make a pit stop to change tires or whatever?

Sometimes these questions remain subjective even after they are answered. What is "fair"? I don't know if I can answer that, being someone who doesn't watch NASCAR, even though it seems to be on the family room TV every time I'm at my parents' house and my brother-in-law is there too. I see the cars going fast. I see the the split seconds that separate the drivers during the race. And I can't possibly imagine a car that's in the lead ever being able to get back into the lead if they have to spend fourteen seconds getting their tires changed. Doesn't seem fair, no matter how you look at it. But here's the best I can give you: there is a mandatory minimum of pit stops. For at least two reasons—tires wear down, fuel runs out—everyone will need to meet that minimum for just logistical reasons. Now, if someone has to make more than that minimum number of pit stops during the race, do they have a shot at still winning? That I can't answer, because I don't watch NASCAR. But I can't possibly believe that they would.

2) What is hay, exactly??

Sometimes I think that I probably know the answer, but I the question still goes on the list because it's something I've literally never thought about in my entire life, and because of that, I should probably make sure, just in case. Every Sunday, a truck filled with like 150 bales of hay is delivered to our neighbors. What the hell is that stuff? Confirmed—hay is dried grass. The interesting thing that I also have never thought about is that hay and straw are different. The difference is the type of plant that is dried out. Grass and pre-sprout legumes become hay, and oat, barley, and wheat usually become straw. Hay being primarily food, and straw being "fodder," i.e. laid on the ground for animals to walk/sleep on. The difference is the nutrients in each, and whether it is fit for animal consumption. My neighbor horses could theoretically eat straw, but it would be the equivalent of me eating paper. This is also why horses eat grass and hay—they are the same thing, basically, a comparable relationship between bread and toast. Anyways, this seemed like it was a stupid question, but I needed to know for sure.

3) Do some outlets charge a phone better than others???

Sometimes my stupid human brain convinces me that the answer is one thing, even though we all know the true answer is another thing. Of course it's not the outlet's fault that my phone takes seven hours to charge. It's actually my dogshit charger. There are better chargers than others; I don't understand the terminology (2A? 550 mA?), but we can go ahead and assume that I own terrible chargers. It also doesn't help when two phones are plugged into the same split charger, because the charge is obviously split between the two phones, significantly slowing it down. And finally, having a cheap phone doesn't help, but unfortunately, that's how I live my life, so it's unavoidable.

4) Who should you look at when you are conversing with someone through the use of a translator????

Sometimes, there isn't an actual answer, but I'm more asking for guidance than a clear answer anyway. I was in class a couple weeks ago, and there were guest speakers who spoke entirely in Spanish, with our professor translating every few minutes. They were saying some really kind things, and I didn't want to be rude, but it also felt a little strange to be staring at them and smiling at them as someone else spoke the words to me. I just wanna make sure, that's all. This was a hard google, but at least one website indicated that I should indeed speak to and look at the person who is being interpreted, and not the interpreter. I figured this was the answer, but it's good to know for sure. I didn't want to be rude to anyone.

5) Is beer from a keg called "draft" beer or "draught" beer?????

Sometimes the answer is so simple that I feel bad I even included it here. I think that This Is My Blood is still warping my brain into thinking things are more complicated with beer drinking than they actually are. The simple answer: the former is the American spelling, the latter is the British spelling. The only wrinkle in this answer is that I myself have never been to England, and yet I know that I've seen and even used the "draught" spelling before, so what gives? The secondary answer to this is also simple: marketing. If a domestic beer or a corner bar wants to seem "fancy" or "exotic," then they can use "draught" to get themselves part of the way there. I've never consciously used "draught" to achieve this goal myself, but since when have I ever consciously thought about anything that I ever do?

Five Questions, April 2021

Joe answers five questions that he wondered aloud to himself throughout the month.

Why are so many kids allergic to peanuts?

I guess I'm starting with question because I am now the cliché parent worried about his kid being exposed to peanuts accidentally and having to shove an EpiPen into her if/when that happens, and I should probably have a better understanding about why this happens, for her sake as much as mine. According to various sources, more and more kids are diagnosed with peanut allergies because we, as a society, are giving their immune systems less and less to do. Which is a good thing! Much preferable to deal with an allergy than, like, rubella or something. But still, the immune system is just looking for something to do, and so it sees a protein that isn't really found in much else besides peanuts and tree nuts, and it overreacts. 20% of kids grow out of it, and since I have always pictured myself as a dad who made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids before school, I'm hoping we get lucky.

Does aluminum foil really block certain wave frequencies, and if so, why??

I always think about one time when a boss at Zipcar had to transport a box of E-ZPasses across state lines, and so he wrapped the box in foil so they wouldn't all be charged at the toll booth at the same time. I had always assumed up until then that it was just crazy people being crazy by wrapping their heads in aluminum foil to "keep the government out of their brains" or whatever. But no! It's legit (the properties of foil, I mean, not the government conspiracies)! It's called a Faraday cage. I don't know if I am committed enough to trying to understand how it actually works, but suffice it to say that certain materials block certain electrical charges, and aluminum foil happens to be one of those materials. (Ugh, I guess that means I'm technically not answering part of the question—just read the goddamn Wikipedia page if you're really want to know!)

Did Disney have to pay for the rights to use Hasbro toys in Toy Story, or does copyright (or whatever) not work that way???

In a perfect world, you could use whatever property you wanted to create art (and eventually, you can, when a property enters "public domain" after a certain amount of time, but that's a different subject). But I was curious to the particulars of how this kind of thing works. The short answer is yes, Disney paid Hasbro originally for the rights to include Mr. Potato Head, et al, in the Toy Story films. In addition, Hasbro had rights to approve all parts of the movie where its toys appeared (I guess to ensure that Mr. Potato Head wasn't pulling a dildo out of his ass pouch or whatever). The longer answer probably involves a bunch of business stuff that I don't really understand—royalties, percentages, and so on. Googling around now, it seems like Hasbro has benefited greatly from their partnership with Disney—not so much Potato Head (though sales for that toy did go up like 90% in 1995 after the movie), but more so all the Star Wars and Marvel toys that Hasbro is now exclusively making. Everyone's cashing in on that shit. Yay?

Can you really crack open the odometer and change the mileage like Ferris Bueller suggests Cameron should do????

I'm only asking this because we're currently in the process of buying a minivan *dodges tomatoes thrown from a frustrated audience* and obviously we're buying it used, so the current mileage is a concern. And I'm wondering what exactly would tell you the mileage besides the odometer, and why you can't just remove the glass and roll back the odometer a few hundred-thousand miles to boost the value. So the answer to my question is yes, it's possible. For older cars especially, you could really just pull the whole odometer out and replace it with another odometer with fewer miles listed. As to what's stopping someone from doing that, there are two answers. The first is that it's a federal crime, which, sure, wouldn't stop the dishonest mechanics and Ferris Buellers of the world, but it might dissuade others from attempting it. Secondly, there are certain telltale signs of tampering that a keen-eyed inspector might be able to use to detect tomfoolery. Loose screws, scratch marks, title documents, and so on, plus newer cars store odometer data in other parts of the vehicle besides the odometer as a way to back up the data and ensure it isn't changed. In any case, I don't think it's something I have to worry about when purchasing a 2016 Dodge Grand Caravan.

Is there a surefire way to know which side of the city block is going to have the even numbers, and which side the odd numbers?????

As someone who drives down unfamiliar Philadelphia streets every single Sunday morning looking for specific addresses, I would love to know if there is a hard and fast rule for this. In the absence of someone specifically stating that Philadelphia has a definitive rule that is followed, I'm going to have to first find a generic answer online, and then I'm going to have to go on Google Maps and test out that answer on a selection of Philadelphia blocks. 

 

Okay: this person on Quora states that houses on the north side or west side of the street are even, and the south side and east side are odd; he also states that diagonals are to be treated as N-S or E-W depending on what they are closer to.

There aren't really many streets in Philly that are exactly North-South or exactly East-West—the main grid is at a slight angle—but we can assume that many are close enough and would thus act like a true N-S / E-W street regardless. I am randomly looking at the 2000 block of N. 17th Street, which is North-South. The west side is evenly numbered, and the east side is oddly numbered. Does that match up with our answer? Yes! 1 for 1. Let's keep going.

Okay, on the same section of the map, the cross street is the 1600 block of Fontain Street. E-W, and the houses to the north are odd, while the south are even. This does NOT match up with the answer that the Quora guy gave, but not all hope is lost. Maybe Philly is even on the south and west, and odd on north and east? Let's try an intersection of blocks in a completely different neighborhood. 

Here's the 300 block of W. Spencer Street. It moves approximately east-west. North are odd, south are even. Around the corner, the 6000 block of N. American Street moves north-south; the even numbers are on the west side, the odd numbers on the east side.

I think it's safe to say we have a simple rule! Houses on the north and east sides are odd, and houses on the south and west sides are even. This should also mean that all streets that move SE-NW should have the same rule, right? Because on those streets, the houses are on the northeast side or the southwest side, and the rule is the same regardless. Let's try to find a street in Philly facing that direction and see if it follows the rule. How about the 5900 block of Kemble Avenue? Yup, odd for NE side and even for SW side. 7000 Greene Street? Yup. My old neighborhood, 2600 E. Allegheny Avenue? Yup.

But what about the streets that go NE-SW? That means there is a NW side of the block and a SE side of the block, and the rule gets jumbled. I'm going to have to pick out a few random streets that move in this direction and see what's what.

Around the corner from that last one, we have 3100 Almond Street. Even on the NW side and odd on the SE side. This would seem to indicate that the east/west side takes precedence over the north/south side of the rule. Let's test it out twice more in different neighborhoods. 1300 E. Passyunk Avenue? Yes, it's even on NW and odd on SE. 5600 Belmar Street? NO!! Ugh. Maybe Southwest Philly is just weird? 6900 Souder Street is NW-even and SE-odd. Same with 6700 Wyncote Avenue.

And this isn't even considering streets that change direction. How is that decided? Maybe the total average is considered? Like if a street curves like a parenthesis, maybe that's still "north-south" on average? Does such a street exist in Philly? I dunno, maybe Lincoln Drive? There aren't many homes on this curvy street, but there are some near where it intersects with W. Hortter Street. To the west of Lincoln? Even. To the east of Hortter? Also even.

Maybe I'm complicating this more than I have to. There is a rule, and there are exceptions. South is even, and west is even, both together are even, except when it's not, and west takes precedence, except when it doesn't. Easy, right? It'll be especially easy when I'm driving in circles around Philadelphia, trying to remember which direction I'm facing, and figuring out whether to look right or left, right?!?!

Five Questions, June 2018

Joe answers five questions that he wondered aloud to himself throughout the month.

1) Do those "Baby on Board" car adornments actually help or do anything at all?

Look, unless a scientific research study is cited or a pediatric doctor tells me something about my baby and our baby-raising practices, I don't believe it. There are too many bullshit rumors and old wives' tales to contend with. Call me a skeptical parent. Do I really need a Baby on Board sign? You know the one. I found no evidence that the placards actually make it safer for babies in a car. In fact, some evidence suggests that the damn things CAUSE accidents, as in the parents can't see out a certain part of the window because the Baby on Board thingy is blocking their view, and that causes an accident. I can buy that. We were told by the hospital that we should not have a rearview mirror for the baby because it just serves as a distraction. I can see Baby on Board being the same.

2) Can you text from space??

This is a very dumb question. It was inspired by an equally dumb commercial I saw recently, with a woman up in space, but even though she was in space she was still able to text her husband who was on earth about some bullshit about their new low-lease car. There is not much information on this subject on the internet, as most of us will never have to send a text from space. This Q&A suggests that you can, but can we take the word of a stranger on the internet? Probably not. This article indicates that internet connection is "slower than dial-up" in outer space; it does not mention texting specifically, but we can assume that if internet is that slow, than texting would be worse.

3) What is Oscar saying in the roast episode of The Office???

Michael gets roasted, and Oscar goes off in Spanish. Apparently I'm not the only one wondering this, because it looks like this gets asked like every other week on the Office subreddit. He apparently says: "You give me an ulcer every time I wake up and I have to come to work. I have to come to work for you. For you!" Hmm. Underwhelming.

4) Does Publishers Clearing House actually award prizes????

I'll be honest, I had never even heard of Publishers Clearing House before the subject was brought up by the old heads at a family party. Apparently the company sells magazine subscriptions, and offers the random chance at huge monetary prizes if you buy a subscription, but it's dubious as to whether prizes are actually awarded at all. And this company still exists! No doubt scamming old people everywhere! But okay, let's see if one actually has a chance at these prizes. According to the wiki, there has been numerous lawsuits in all 50 states regarding the fact that PCH may have overstated the odds of winning, but there's no mention of prizes actually being awarded or not. This news site claims that, yes, prizes are awarded every year, but does not give any examples. This article also indicates that the prizes are real, but that many scammers are using the PCH name to get money out of people with no chance of winning. This Boston CBS affiliate gives some anecdotal evidence that prizes were awarded. So it looks like the bottom line is this—Publishers Clearing House is a real company that gives out real prizes, but you should still be skeptical if you are told you won (haven't you seen Nebraska?).

5) What the fuck is the difference between some of those baseball pitches?????

Okay, it's time. I've been watching baseball for over a decade now. It's time to learn what the difference between a curveball and a breaking ball and sinker is. Let's go through it. This is a really good illustration of each pitch.

The easiest is the four-seam fastball. It goes straight and fast. Some other fastballs have some movement, but are still fast. The two-seam fastball moves downward slightly. The cutter breaks away from the batter. The splitter is a fastball until is slows down all of a sudden.

"Breaking Balls" is really describing a category of pitches, all pitches that have dramatic movement. Curveball goes up and then down. Slider (Brad Lidge's specialty, you'll recall), goes down and away. There are a few other slight variations on these pitches, like the "slurveball."

Finally, you have your changeups. They are slower pitches, but they are meant to throw off the batter because the movement of the pitcher's arm is identical to a fastball, and so batters swing early.

This was a question that was easy to answer, but tougher to put into practice. I still can't tell the difference during an actual game between some of these pitches. But I'm gonna work on it, I promise! Tom McCarthy, help me out!

Five Questions, April 2018

Joe answers five questions that he wondered aloud to himself throughout the month.

1) Why did they change the highway signs on I-676, from saying that I-95 North heads toward "Trenton" to saying that I-95 North heads toward "New York"?

I fucking hate New York so it was rough seeing the name of that shitty one-horse town on a Philadelphia highway. But apparently, there is some serious construction work going on up north, where they are "closing a gap" in I-95. When the project is complete, 95 won't go anywhere near Trenton. That strip of highway previously known as I-95 will be renamed I-295, and I-95N will go straight to New York, not to Trenton. Fucking New York.

2) Do pharmacies keep EVERY prescription in the back, or do they have to special order each one as the orders come in??

The answer is boring, and it's a little bit of A and a little bit of B. I mean, obviously, they don't have EVERY prescription in there, but pharmacies know what are the "hot sellers" and keep a bunch of those, and then special order the rest. This guy on the internet seemed to know what he was talking about. I couldn't find anything about the process of pharmacies ordering special meds.

3) What is the story behind the name of the Vegas strip club Spearmint Rhino???

Pam and I always used to laugh when we passed this strip club in Vegas. It's such a silly name for a topless bar. Our theory was that two strippers opened the place originally: a stripped named Spearmint and a stripper named Rhino. Alas, the answer is more pedestrian than that. The original Spearmint Rhino opened in 1989 next to a restaurant called Peppermint Elephant, so they chose a play on words as their nomenclature.

4) Why does the Pearl Jam album Ten have eleven tracks????

I've been making good on a New Year's resolution to listen to more older music this year instead of just music that has recently come out. So last week I got my hands on a copy of Pearl Jam's most famous grunge album, Ten. I was surprised to hear, however, that there are ELEVEN tracks on the album. I always assumed that the name of the album was just a simple description of how many songs the album was comprised of. Not so! Apparently, Pearl Jam's original name was Mookie Blaylock, after the NBA basketball player. To honor Mookie, they named their debut album after his jersey number.

5) What the FUCK is the deal with that lady who keeps yelling "LET'S go PHIL-lies!" in the background of every goddamn Phillies radio broadcast, for the whole fucking game?????

I wish I had the patience to record a snippet of this bullshit on the radio and post it here, but if you wanna hear it, you're gonna have to just turn on 94 WIP during a home Phillies game. There it is, overlapping with Scott and Larry, the incessant squawk of someone yelling the same thing over and over and over. We get it!! Let's go Phillies!! Yes, we know!! It's like fucking nails on a chalkboard.

I went on /r/phillies to try to figure out what this lady's fucking deal was. And... whoops. There's evidence to suggest that the person yelling is not an adult woman, but is, in fact, a special needs child. The person I was yelling "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" to in the car while listening to the radio was a child. Now I feel bad. I suppose he can yell whatever makes him happy. I'll endure.