E-Filler Archives

Well, I finally submitted my thesis. In 2-3 weeks I will do my defense, make any necessary corrections, and (hopefully) be done with university.

I'm sure we'd all like to see Dan get sued or killed by Scientologists, so I thought I'd help out here. I highly recommend watching the Scientology Orientation video, available (as of the time of this writing) on both Google Video and archive.org. My money's on archive.org keeping it up longer (Google has a history of caving into any sort of pressure).

Since there's no other news: Mike is getting a new fish. You can vote for the name of it here.

For those in attendance at yesterday's pub night, the name of the 'pact' we were trying to recall is a 'Tontine'. They are apparently now illegal in the US and UK because of the incentive for the participants to kill one another...

Also, the episode of the Simpson's where this appeared was called "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish" (which according to the Wikipedia article has the longest name for a Simpson's episode).

Maybe it's too much time spent watching soccer at work (by the way, thanks to whoever decided that the first game of each day should start at 9am EDT and the last game should end at 5pm EDT), but I can't get enough of that Togo celebration. It was after Togo's first and only goal in World Cup history.



After much searching, I've actually found a video of the celebration.

Skyservice...when the travel agent said that we'd be flying on an airline called "Skyservice" (which I had never heard of before) I knew I was in trouble. Boarding the plane to Jamaica confirmed my fears...it was a yellow school bus with wings.

Coming back was the real treat though. We were supposed to take off at 7:40 PM, but didn't end up leaving until 4AM. The plane that arrived (with passengers) to take us home developed "a problem with the flaps" upon it's approach to Montego Bay, and they had to send a new plane from Toronto (also reminicent of a yellow school bus).

A quick scan of epinions.com indicates that this isn't the first time they've had problems...you've been warned.

I figured this would be a fitting post the day before the wedding: Today I was thinking about the literal 'Ball and Chain'. When and where was it used? Why is it no longer used? What was it made out of (iron? cement?)? etc. Unfortunatly, the Wikipedia article leaves much to be desired. You can help Dan and Wikipedia by expanding it...

The first time I walked under the rail bridge over Talbot St. (near Oxford) I wondered what the large steel beams on either side of the bridge were for. They aren't connected to the bridge, so they don't provide any structural support, and they are made out of what appears to be large/heavy I-beams.

Anyway, yesterday, upon leaving my apartment I got the answer:



They keep overly optimistic truck drivers from damaging the bridge.