November 30, 2007
FOUR FOR FRIDAY
Q1 - Beam Me Up, Scotty: Do you think humans should actively attempt to colonize another planet, or would doing so right now simply be a waste of money?
Q2 - Absurdity: Which do you think is more absurd: That a 54-year-old school teacher in the Sudan was arrested earlier in the week and sentenced to 15 days in prison after she allowed her class of seven-year-olds to name a teddy bear "Mohammed" as part of a school project, or the fact that almost every single late night "talk" show--including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with David Letterman--is on hiatus because of a "writers" strike?
Q3 - Spend It All, Now!: On this day in 2004, longtime Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings finally lost after winning 222 consecutive rounds and netting for himself over $2.5 million in winnings. If you came into 10 times that amount of money ($25,000,000) and were given just 72 hours to spend every last dime, how would you spend it? (Caveat #1: You are limited to investing or trusting only 1% or $250,000. Caveat #2: You may only purchase one piece of real property and its cost may not exceed 4% of the total spend or $1,000,000.)
Q4 - Cars: What is the absolute worst experience you have ever had in an automobile?
Posted by Mikal at November 30, 2007 12:35 PM
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Q1- Nope, waste of time and money.
Q2- Wow, both pretty absurd. But I would have to say the "writers" strike.
Q3- Anything and everything that is needed and available to secure the well being of my daughter. The most expensive property I can find. Then I would go nuts on a pimped out Nissan GTR (One that would be better than Clark's), top of the line computer, a pair of shoes, a personal trainer, tattoos, give some to charity, and if there is any left, throw a huge party with all my true friends.
Q4- Two hours into a 23 hour road trip from Illinois to Utah, I threw up on one of my dogs in the car. We decided to clean up the huge mess as best as we can, and continue our trek. 2 hours later, my brother fell asleep at the wheel. After hitting a speed limit sign and crashing through a barbed wire fence, we drove down an embankment into a field occupied by mooing cattle. Now added to the smell of puke mixed with a "new car" air freshener was ripe cow poop that was coming through what used to be the front passenger window. The story goes on with family fights, more puking, a flat tire, and a car repair bill of over $2,000.00. All elements of an experience and memory that will not go down in history as a favorite Sabey Family Trip. But I will spare the details.
Colonization: No way should humans screw up another planet.
Absurdity: I am sick of the oversensitivity of "a certain group." People! The world does not revolve around you...
...those writers need to get a life.
Spend It Challenge: I would buy property in Templeton, California - maybe with a house on it. I would put the $250K away for the family. I would give the bulk to family, and charities. Last, with the leftovers, I would buy several great new cars, and store them as investments for the future.
Car Problems: There is nothing worthy after reading Jake's story. I seriously can't think of anything now. Carsick, crashes, breakdowns...Jake wins!
Q1 - Beam Me Up, Scotty: Waste of money. Let's work on fixing the one we've got.
Q2 - Absurdity: From what I've read, I actual side with the writers on this one, so I'll go with the Sudan teacher. Besides, who wouldn't want to have their name used to name a TEDDY BEAR!!! Even if you're God, that is just plain cool. I would love to have a Jeremy Bear on the market.
Q3 - Spend It All, Now!: OK, first of all, $25,000,000 is A LOT of money. So of course I'd put $250,000 as an investment (Caveat #1). Then I'd buy a property in Jackson, WY for the $1,000,000 (Caveat #2). That leaves $23,750,000. I'd find things to buy outside of the Caveats that were resellable so that I could end up keeping most of the money. Gold, jewelry, collectibles, art, antiques, extremely rare and expensive cars, etc. All within 72 hours. Then I'd sell them later, put the money in the bank, and even if I only net out 3% return after inflation, that's still have an annual income of $750,000. Not too shabby.
Q4 - Cars: Driving back from San Diego early this year our transmission seal blew out on our Ford Explorer. Our 2006 Ford Explorer. With around 36,300 miles on it's 36,000 mile warranty. We were stranded in this tiny town in California, and it was a Sunday. Had to get a hotel close to the Ford Dealer in case the car wouldn't drive the next day, and the hotel was HORRIBLE. Rented a car the next day and drove home to UT. Had to fly a friend back down, have them rent a car to get to the tiny town, and then drive our car back once fixed. Cost me over $2,000 in repairs and all the travel expenses.
Q1 - Beam Me Up, Scotty: Why, just take a flight anywhere and see all the uninhabited land that we already have.
Q2 - Absurdity: And that also answers the previous question of why we shouldn't inhabit other planets.
Q3 - Spend It All, Now!: First I would buy a new Toyota Tundra to drive around in and spend the rest of my money.
Then I would buy a Honda Jet, fly to Jackson Hole Wyoming and pick out a nice piece of property on the Snake River. Okay, and I just read Jeremy's comment and saw that he is getting the same thing, so it looks like we both have the same idea.
Then I would give the rest of it to my wife, just to keep it in the family you know.
Q4 - Cars: Oh wow, this is a good story. As I teenager I worked as a bag boy at the grocery store. I became friends with one of the checker girls, who was about 6 ft tall and 250 lbs. Big Girl! She invited me to lunch one day with her and her mom. When her mom picked us up, I sat in the front seat and saw that her mom was just as big or bigger than she was.
Well, as we were driving to Wendy's, we passed through an intersection where a gigantically enormous boy was standing on the corner in pajamas. I thought to myself that that was pretty weird, but kept it to myself.
On the way back to work, on the exact same corner as before, was an even bigger girl, probably 400 pounds. Thinking that was so bizarre, I shouted out, "What is this? The Fat corner?"
Then I had realized what I said and who I was riding with. I looked over and her mom glared at me and said, "I'm going to kill you!"
Ya, I'm glad it was only another two blocks back to the grocery store!
1. At this time, it's a waste of money. I'm all for exploration in the meantime though
2. The 'talk' shows. Firstly because it shows just how little of them are actually unscripted and secondly because crap like this is even considered newsworthy.
3. Well, first I'd take care of your caveats: invest the quarter million and then buy a small multi-unit property so that I could have a place to live that could pay for itself through rentals and could be used to house friends or family who are down on their luck. Then I'd furnish the new place and buy tickets for my ideal round the world vacation.. After that? put a chunk of money into a trust for my nephews and nieces and give the rest (anonymously) to small local charities since they're usually the most cash-strapped and can have the most immediate impact.
4. The absolute worst is too sleazy to go into here, so I'm going to give you the second worst. Back in college I was driving one of my roommates to the student health center because he thought he had the flu or something. Stomach flu, it turned out, as we discovered when he launched the first volley of projectile vomit all over the dash and windshield of my car. That poor car smelled like puke for months afterwards.
1. Even though we are now officially screwing up planet Earth, I don't think we need to jump ship quite yet. However, in 100 years or so, I think it may be something we need to look into.
2. Getting put in jail for naming teddy bears Mohammed. I've always thought Mohammed would make a CUTE name for a teddy bear :). And writers going on strike isn't "weird". It's predictable. Someone in Hollywood is always getting their undies in a twist for one reason or another.
3. Sheesh. Harsh caveats! I'd pay off all of my debts first. That'd probably use up most of the $25,000,000. Then I'd buy a one year supply of food for me and my family (including a one-year supply of Twix bars) a Ferrari, a Porsche, a Lamborghini, a whole bunch of Transformers and Pez dispensers, and a vacation to Hawaii. With whatever's left over, I'd donate a wad to charity and retire for the rest of my life. AhhhhhhÖ
4. When I was 16, I had spent a few weeks in Utah after having moved from that state to Texas. To get back to Texas, I had to drive with my Aunt, Uncle, and six kids, four of whom were under six years old. It was two days in a steel cage death match van with screaming kids, screaming parents, and a pounding headache. The only respite I received was once an hour on the hour when yet another child had to pee (Why the crap can't they synchronize those hummingbird sized bladders?). Even Midnight Oil turned up full blast on my little Walkman couldn't drown out the misery. Those were two of the longest days of my life.
Q1: I don't think it's a waste of time or money. We wouldn't have a lot of the things we have now if we would have given up and said it's a waste of time and money.
Q2: I hate the writers strike. There are too many good TV shows on that are now just playing re-runs.
Q3: I would obviously start by buying me a nice house with a few nice cars. I would then look to buy a professional sports franchise.
Q4: I can't think of anything that bad that has happened to me in a car. In high school I had received 13 tickets in less than a year and had my license suspended.
q1: let's try it. it's probably going to take 50 attempts before we get it right. might as well start as soon as we can.
q2: prison
q3: i invest the $250,000 into stocks, iras, whatever else I could quickly (only 72 hrs). i'd buy the $1,000,000 of property some mountain, and some ocean front. then i'd buy a couple of nice vehicles for me and some for my family members, new entertainment center, new computer, new carpet for our house, hire professional painters too for the house, then my wife and i would run through costco doing a shopping spree, and then we do one at target and walmart too. afterward i would buy like jer: jem stones, gold coins, etc. then with the remain (largest portion likely) i'd donate it to charities of my choice, and pay for a humanitarian trip for my wife and me to go to china.
q4: nothing really horrible comes to mind. i was on a date with a girl once who was driving us around and i was pretty sure we were both going to die...she had an extremely heavy foot and slower response skills...not a good combination.
1- Colonization may be too aggressive, but I'm all for research and development. Incidentally, have you heard of the planet Gliese 581C? The Sci Fi geek in me really wants to see some colonists go and claim it for earth, but it's not exactly a good financial move.
guardian. co. uk/science/2007/apr/25/starsgalaxiesandplanets.spaceexploration
(take out spaces)
2- The teacher. Solidarity, baby.
3- I would invest the $250,000 in Google stock, then use the $1,000,000 for land to build a resort and fine restaurant on the Central coast of California. I'd have to use the rest of it for construction, to bring in a featured chef, to buy equipment and hotel items, spa set-up, etc. I'd end up selling the hotel portion off and managing the spa and restaurant myself. Oh, and if there was any of the $25mm left over, I'd get a private jet too.
4- I can remember the worst experience I probably gave someone in a car. My sister and I saw the musical Rent in college, and we both had the soundtrack. While riding with my grandparents and mother on a long trip, she and I reenacted the whole thing in the car, without the least consideration for how bad we probably sounded and how annoying we were. I feel so bad now.
1. Beam Me Up, Scotty: I agree with Mike. If it were plausible, I'd be all for it and I would even volunteer to scout out the new digs. However, I can't imagine colonizing even the Moon or Mars, since living there would screw you up due to the much lower gravity. But, like Mike, I'm 1,010% for any off-world exploration.
2. Absurdity: I just finished reading an article about the Sudan "incident" before coming here. To start with, Muhammad is a very common name among Muslims. Secondly, the (mostly Muslim) children chose the name. Third, each child took turns taking the teddy bear home and writing a journal entry for the bear (so most of the Muslim parents almost certainly knew about it), and fourth, hard-line Muslims in the area are calling for the teacher's execution. It's tough to be more absurd than demanding the death of a teacher for allowing her students to name a teddy bear a commonly used name. It would be no different than Mormons demanding the violent execution of a person for naming their cat "Joseph" (after a Mormon child recommended the name) or Jews demanding the execution of somebody who named their gerbil "Adam". Even for Islamic extremists, this is ridiculous. But even the much-lighter-than-death sentence of 15 days in jail... still absurd beyond belief.
3. Spend It All Now!: Easy. Invest 1%, buy a million dollar home, buy all the comic books I've missed since I stopped collecting 16 years ago, then spend the rest on a luxury yacht. When all is said and done, sell the yacht and PARTY!!! Oh wait, maybe I'd throw a party on the yacht first... in international waters of course!
4. Cars: Well, since "automobile" does not include motorcycles, I really don't have anything. Umm... once I had to ride with my grandma from Delta to Orem (a 100 mile trip). We passed through a minuscule tear in the fabric of space-time. This affected my grandma, resulting in her being unable to exceed 55 mph the entire way. Excruciating! But at least it didn't smell like barf, and I did get a glimpse into another universe, albeit a brief one. I swear I saw myself dancing in my underwear while girls threw pickles at me... *shudder*
Q1: Sure, lets have some fun with the Universe.
Q2: I'd say the poor teacher with the prison sentence. I think the late night shows are just lazy, not absurd ;).
Q3: I'd invest the max, buy max property (which would be a shack in California, but not bad for Utah). Then I'd probably buy lots of cars for me and family/friends, donate a ton. Probably buy lots of things I could sell after the deadline, diamonds, gold and the like. Furnish the new house, etc, etc, etc.
Q4: Probably when I wrecked my car, wrapped it around a telephone pole, though I suppose it shouldn't really count since I don't really remember it.
1. No, that would be a waste of time and money at this point. We've got a nice planet and should continue to take care of what we've got.
2. Definitely more absurd that a woman is going to spend time in jail for letting her class name a stuffed animal. Get over it already people. You need to find more constructive ways of overreacting.
3. Ohmygosh! I don't know! I can't even fathom it....of course I'd go crazy and buy everything I can see, invest the 1%, buy an island with the 4% then outfit the island with all the luxuries known to man and whatever I have left goes to charity :)
4. That Olsen boy.
Whatever floats one's boat. I've been reading about Jon Smith and the Virginia Company of London right now--colonization is about a lot more than the colony. Anyway, I think it's genetically programmed into humans to explore and colonize...
Most certainly the former. The writers, in this writers humble opinion, have a point.
Well one million won't buy you much in Laguna Beach, so I'll spend the million buying property in Chili and turning it into a national park, I'll invest the amount allowed and I'll donate the remainder (splitting it between Health for Heros, the Autism Society of America, NPR, Laguna Canyon Wilderness Foundation, and Pinedale, Wyoming's arts council).
Accidents aside, I think it would have to be driving with YOUR MOM!
1 - I think we should do this someday, but I'm not sure about now. Who would do it? The US seems to have bigger -- er, closer to home, fish to fry, now.
2 - Definitely, the teacher in the Sudan. Give me a break!
3 - Hmmm...fun. I'd buy as much property as I could. Yeah, i don't know how much that would buy. I would like to own prop. in California someday. Right now I'm east coast based. And, color me shallow but I'd buy a really nice watch and some great luggage and boots. Yes I'd give some to charity too. :) Autism is one of my causes, as is Am. Cancer Society.
4 - Well, there are many, but because this is one of the earliest that sticks out and it was just wrong on so many levels, when I was a kid and we were all driving to Rehoboth Beach (1971? 2? 3?) in a crammed car, we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker (dumb move number one). The car was already crowded (dm #2) and there were kids in the car (#3), I was riding the hump in the middle (#4). I get carsick (#5).
You can probably guess the rest. I threw up on the hitchhiker. Well, he may have learned his lesson about hitching rides..lol.
Why the quotes around writers? Are shows somehow not actually written? Do they spring forth fully formed from the head of Zeus?
Does Letterman's Top 10 magically appear every night, brought by elves or something? Do Conan and Jay make up their monologues on the spot? No. All of these things are created by a team of writers.
The "absurdity" question is just sad. What's absurd about the writers' strike is that the media corporations are trying to say that writers shouldn't be paid when their work is used, that an entire TV show streamed over the Internet is a "promotion" rather than a TV show. To say that they're "oversensitive" is just ridiculous.
How does that even compare in absurdity to a backwards nation filled with ignorant religious zealots is putting a teacher in jail for "insulting the prophet"? How does it compare in absurdity to crowds of people calling for this woman's death?
Q1 - Beam Me Up, Scotty: I think it's very human to want to be somewhere other than where we are--another planet, another time, another dimension, heaven, whatever. Once we get there, we'll want to be somewhere else. Why fight the urge? We've already proven that we're not going to steward this planet properly.
Q2 - Absurdity: Hands down, the teacher and the Teddy bear. It proves the need for killing as many extremists as possible. Maybe we can ship Islamists to that other planet.
Q3 - Spend It All, Now!: I would trust $125,000 for each of my kids, pay off my son's college bills, pay my daughter's 4 years of college up front, invest the full $1 mil allotment in real estate (probably gulf side of Florida), bail all other family members out of debt, pay for 4 years of college for my wife and myself, so we could study whatever we wanted, buy a small plane and pay for flying lessons for me, my wife, and two kids, buy a yacht and a couple waverunners, and buy a bunch of stuff I could sell later.
Q4 - Cars: At the age of 18 (when I looked like I was about 15), I was hitchhiking in Illinois. Two ladies in their early 50's from Texas picked me up; they thought I was a runaway. One had an artificial leg. They had obviously lived rough/wild lives. It was a cold winter day, and they said they were heading south, which sounded a heck of a lot warmer. We were on a two-lane highway. About 20 miles into the trip, it started snowing like mad. You couldn't see 20 feet in front of you. We were stuck behind a semi that was going about 40 mph. The roads were pretty slick. The lady who was driving decided to pass the semi. As she pulled into the other lane and was about a third of the way alongside the semi, we could see another semi coming straight at us. She slammed on the brakes and turned hard to the left. We spun completely around about four times and ran down an embankment. Nobody was hurt. I helped push the car onto an access road that ran parallel with the highway. I told them thanks for the ride, but I was just going to walk the rest of the day. We said our good-byes and parted company.
Great questions. They inspired me to quite an enormous post! (Including link here instead of the content.) It's good to be back in the Four For Friday tradition!
1. No, we have too many problems here on Earth, we don't need to start trouble elsewhere. Keep the money here and help others who need it most.
2. The first is equal to a Christian classroom naming the teddy bear Jesus - which I don't see as a problem given that a lot of people are named Jesus. What is the meaning of the teddy bear? In any case, I don't think she should have been arrested, then again, she lives in Sudan. The second senario - I could care less about a writer's strike because I rarely watch TV, but I did read that Conan O'Brien was paying his employees during the strike (don't know if the money is coming out of his own pocket or the show's).
3. I'd spend as much as I could on real property, and give as much as I could to charity. Then I'd just go out and spend it on other people around the country - buy them cars, furniture, food. It seems like a lot to spend in only a short amount of time.
4. There haven't been too many bad experiences, so I'd have to say: sitting in the tiny backseat of a truck, driving on windy back roads and getting completely and horribly car sick.
1. I'd love to colonize, and I think a NASA budget should be kept, but upping the investment to actually colonize, I'm not ready to jump on that one just yet.
2. I go with the teacher, but I think the absurdity in both cases is the reaction of others, not the incidents themselves.
3. After the 5% in the caveats, send my wife on a shopping spree, get 2 new cars, buy a small plane and flying lessons, then buy as large a part of a top tier sports franchise as I can get.
4. I have nothing on the already listed stories, but probably the food poisoning my two siblings and I all got while eating mexican fast food on a road trip. One person vomiting is bad, but when that first person's action triggers 2 others... well I didn't enjoy it.
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