Favorite Words of the Day Part 7

Blah, blah, blah, you know the drill. Here are some words of the day presented by a non-sponsor, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary:

• 1/1/2012 Incommunicado (in-kuh-myoo-nuh-KAH-doh): Without means of communication; in a situation or state not allowing communication
• 1/13/12 Thole (THOHL): chiefly dialect: endure
• 1/15/12 Xylography (zye-LAH-gruh-fee): the art of making engravings on wood especially for printing
• 1/16/12 Ostensible (ah-STEN-suh-bul): 1)intended for display: open to view 2) being such in appearance: plausible rather than demonstrably true or real 
• 1/18/12 Junket (JUNK-ut): 1) a dessert of sweetened flavored milk set with rennet. 2)a) a festive social affair b) trip, journey: as (1) a trip made by an official at public expense (2) a promotional trip made at another's expense
• 1/19/12 Fustian (FUSS-chun): 1) a strong cotton and linen fabric 2) high-flown or affected writing or speech; broadly: anything high-flown or affected in style
• 1/21/12 Weltschmerz (VELT-shmairts): 1) mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state with an ideal state 2) a mood of sentimental sadness
• 1/22/12 Leonine (LEE-uh-nyne): of, relating to, suggestive of, or resembling a lion
• 1/23/12 Yegg (YEG): safecracker; also: robber
• 1/29/12 Cook's Tour (COOKS-TOOR): a rapid or cursory survey or review
• 1/31/12 Gambol (GAM-bul): to skip about in play: frisk, frolic
• 2/2/12 Stiction (STIK-shun): the force required to cause one body in contact with another to begun to move
• 2/3/12 Gam (GAM): 
• intransitive sense
• to engage in a visit or friendly conversation at sea or ashore
• transitive senses
• to have a visit or friendly conversation with
• to spend or pass (as time) talking
• 2/6/12 Propinquity (pruh-PING-kwuh-tee): 1) nearness of blood: kinship 2) nearness in place or time: proximity
• 2/7/12 Cacography (ka-KAH-gruh-fee): 1) bad spelling 2) bad handwriting
• 2/8/12 Prescind (prih-SIND): to withdraw one's attention
• 2/11/12 Catercorner (KAT-ee-kor-ner): in a diagonal or oblique position: kitty-corner
• 2/12/12 Vade Mecum (vay-dee-MEE-kum): 1) a book for reference: manual 2) something regularly carried about by a person
• 2/14/12 Aubade (oh-BAHD): 1) a song or poem greeting the dawn 2)a) a morning love song b) a song or poem of lovers parting at dawn 3) morning music
• 2/20/12 Duende (doo-EN-day): the poewr to attract through personal magnetism and charm
• 2/27/12 Viva Voce (vye-vuh-VOH-see): by word of mouth: orally
• 2/28/12 Livelong (LIV-lawng): whole, entire
• 2/29/12 Bosky (BAH-skee): 1) having abundant tree or shrubs 2) of or relating to a woods
• 3/1/12 Abeyance (un-BAY-unss): 1) a lapse in succession during which there is no person in whom a title is vested 2) temporary inactivity: suspension
• 3/2/12 Yuppify (YUP-uh-fye): to make appealing to yuppies; also: to infuse with the qualities or values of yuppies
• 3/4/12 Babbit (BAB-it): a person and especially a business or professional man who conforms unthinkingly to prevailing middle-class standards
• 3/6/12 Putsch (PUTCH): a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government
• 3/8/12 Diplopia (dih-PLOH-pee-uh): a disorder of vision in which two images of a single object are seen because of unequal action of the eye muscles - called also double vision
• 3/3/12 WInsome (WIN-sum): 1) generally pleasind and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence 2) cheerful, lighthearted

Until next week...

The Daumenator has spoken

Last Words... Probably Not

WARNING: This blog post may not be funny.

Due to a lot of speculation, the world has been predicted to end today. I don't really know what to think of it. When I first heard about it two years ago, I wrote in my Google Calendar, "The world ends today, I think. I really don't know. I think I will find out when I get there." Shows how much I know. It also shows that I really have not changed all that much.

The point is, if the world ends on December 21, this will be the last blog post from J Town that you will read. As of right now, (February 2012) I know that there will be mass hysteria from those who are easily swayed by a few radicals. I know I will not believe the world will end, but will still be cautious anyway. I will get things off my plate, I will clean stuff and make the place where I live look nice. And I will also suit up. That's right; if I die, I am going out in style like the fashionable dude that I know I am. I am in college right now, so I know I will attend my last lecture suit style. I know that will be the last day of lectures before preparations for final exams will begin so that will be a nice end to everything... if the end of the world ever happens.

So I have been writing all of my posts in advance. I do it because I like writing, but I want people, pretty much the people I tell about this blog, to get my material in a timely fashion over a long period of time. It all started when I wrote about 5 posts in a day and I didn't want people to think that I wrote 5 posts in a day. This was at the beginning of 2011. It was Winter Break and I had loads of free time... and a lot of cool ideas. I then decided that people needed some fun thing to read every week. I decided upon the time of 6 o' clock because I needed some time after I got home from school to write a last minute post, if need be. Silly, yes, but all traditions start somewhere.

I now am reading posts that I wrote a year ago. I find it to be a little strange because hints of things that I really liked at the time keep showing up. For music, it was songs that I listened to repeatedly. I would also repeat jokes a lot. They may not have been good, but I repeated them often. But reading posts that I wrote so long ago is like looking at your art projects that you created in 1st grade; they just seem so long ago and their quality does not tend to match yours now. I tend to judge my past self quite harshly so maybe it is just me who sees the many mistakes that I make, but it is interesting to see progression in typing speed, word style, and way of phrasing things. I found that I have adopted the phrase, "In the sense that" when writing academic papers to try to sound more scholarly. I haven't been caught yet so it must work, duh, science.

Time for a random tangent: Small fonts vs. Large fonts.

Small fonts are your conservative friend. They help you fit your words in a small, enclosed space, such as a page, text box, or one line. They are handy when you want a one-page résumé and you just pick small fonts and strategic margins.

Large fonts are for people with terrible eye sight, but have you ever checked out a large print book from a library? Well, you should; you just fly right through the book so much faster than if the words were small. You read many more pages, which makes you feel so accomplished. Each page has less words, but still, you are reading and it feels great. Large fonts are also great for street signs.

Small fonts are really tiny. They are placed on commercials so you really can't read them,  but are there to show any disclaimers that the commercial might have. You have to really strain your eyes in order to see what is written sometimes.

Large fonts give the impression of someone shouting. You don't truly want someone shouting at you. Also, if there is a typo in a large sign, it truly is a big mistake.

And those are the pros and cons of small and large fonts.

One last thing to say before I end this post:

I once thought a "Proton" was a super hero. It was when I was at a laser tag place and I needed a nickname. There was list of suggested names and I saw proton next to Neutron and Electron. I thought Neutron was just paying homage to Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, a  animated character who has a real knack for science and real humorous friends. I also though electron was the name for a voting machine. But when I saw Proton, I thought that was the name for a heroic robot. Since we were playing with lasers, I thought that was a great idea. Little did I know... I was wrong.

The Daumenator has spoken

My Classical Collection

Lately, I have found that classical music has become my, "get stuff done" music. When I am folding laundry, when I need to focus, or when I need to embarrass somebody by saying that the song is totally "their jam." Regardless of the true reason, I have created a mass of classical music in my library that I feel people should know about.


By the way, the pictures that are located next to the songs are not under my control and should be ignored.

The Barber of Seville Overture by Gioachino Rossini



The Marriage of Figaro Overture by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart



Clair De Lune by Claude Debussey



Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt



Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach



The Swan, from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns



Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian



Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 Morning by Edvard Grieg



Spring for Four Seasonsby Antonio Vivaldi

The Daumenator has shown


P.S. Last, but not least, the full 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Questions

I was recently given a few questions for being a judge at a comedy competition. The questionnaire was supposed to allow me to have funny answers so that everyone could laugh while reading them. Sadly, this was not the case for this set of questions. They were very feminine questions such as, "Who was your favorite Spice Girl?, How many times did you cry during "Up?",What inspired your hairstyle?, and Favorite Romantic Comedy?"

As you can see, there was not a very much room for a guy like myself to work with. I did my best, but I felt the questions could have been better. Then it hit me. I could try to write better questions for this shindig. Here are some questions that I have brainstormed thus far:

• Describe the type of socks that best fit you, both physically and emotionally
• Fill in the blank: A ______ is the best animal to fist bump
• What celebrity would you call to bail you out of jail? BONUS: What if it was for arson?
• What would you call a refrigerator with sarcasm?
• What is the first thing you would say to a purple elephant in the room at a psychiatrist conference?
• What would you name a new mix between purple, grey, and brown?
• If value was not part of it, what is the best coin in the United States?
• You just created a cereal that is made out of styrofoam cardboard and peanut shells. What is the slogan?
• Favorite toe on either foot, be specific
• What animal is best suited for the name "Helga?"
• What is your catch phrase when you karate chop someone?
• How would you pronounce the name of the restaurant, "Bojangles?"

I then opened the floor to an acquaintance of mine to see if it was just me who could come up with questions. Turns out, I wasn't:

• What song never fails to cheer you up?
• If you had a catch-phrase, what would it be? (I had to revise my earlier one, they beat to it)
• If you had a third arm (but not a fourth), where would you want it to grow from?
• Which movie would you choose to be your life story?
• You're starting your Pokemon journey: who do you want as your starter?
• A wild unicorn appears! What do you do?
• You're sucked up by a tornado. Where does it transport you?
• You're joining a band. What instrument do you play?
• Should Pluto be reinstated as a planet?
• Which animal would be your valiant steed?

Due to my competitive nature, I then persisted to come up with more questions:

• You have one of the following to add to your cat, pick one: Mustache, Monocle, Beard, Viking horns, Earring (one), Sweater Vest, Boxing Gloves
• What is your prison name (keep it clean)?
• You get to name your own radio station and DJ name, GO!
• Favorite Chinese Year (Pick one): Dragon, Rabbit, Tiger, Ox, Rat, Pig, Dog, Rooster, Monkey, Goat, Horse, Snake
• Write your own survey question
• You are a superhero named Captain Fantastic, what is your sidekick's name?
• Staring Contest: You vs. (Celebrity of your choice)
• Create 7 new dwarf names for Snow White
• Select the Peanuts character that best describes you

Well, those are all the questions that I have for right now. Until next time.

The Daumenator has spoken

Advanced Doodles

Back by popular demand, these doodles are back, mainly because of popular demand. If you do not understand who demanded these, it might comfort you to know that I don't either. I spent some time in the Google Docs area thinking of things to create with a computer and this is what I came up with. As for the title, I was thinking that I have somewhat improved from when I first started drawing things on Google Docs. Some of you may disagree, that is okay. I might jump on your bandwagon later, leave room for me. Anyway, here are the latest creations by me:

So you have seen my various doodles for this post. Now, if you wouldn't mind, would fill out this form that I have set up to ask about the doodles that I just created?

The Daumenator has drawn... your attention to the rest of this line

What's Rocket Mail? Well according to a survey of 1, that is the most asked question when it comes to the meaning of Rocket Mail. A Wikipedia article can tell you more about it than I can:

Rocket mail

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the webmail service that became Yahoo! Mail, see Rocketmail.

The collection of philatelic material ("stamps") used for (and depicting) rocket mail is a specialist branch ofaerophilately known as astrophilately.

Rocket mail is the delivery of mail by rocket or missile. The rocket would land by deploying an internal parachute upon arrival. It has been attempted by various organizations in many different countries, with varying levels of success. It has never become widely seen as being a viable option for delivering mail, due to the cost of the schemes and numerous failures.

The SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missilewas used for one attempt to deliver mail.

Pioneers

Friedrich Schmiedl launched the first rocket mail (V-7, Experimental Rocket 7) with 102 pieces of mail between Schöckl and St. Radegund, Austria. Schmiedl also launched rockets on 21 April 1931 from the Austrian town of Schöckl to Kaite Rinne with mail and a spectrograph. After the April flight, 79 specially printed postcards marked in German with "Flown in Instrument Rocket" bear stamps from the flights.^[1]

Gerhard Zucker experimented in the 1930s with powder rockets similar to fireworks. Between 1931 and 1933, he travelled throughout Germany displaying his rocket and claiming that it could be used to deliver mail. After moving to the United Kingdom, Zucker attempted to convince the General Post Office that postal delivery by rocket was viable. After initial demonstrations on the Sussex Downs in southern England, rockets were launched on 28 and 31 July 1934 over a 1600-metre flight path between the Hebridean islands of Harris and Scarp in Scotland. Around 1.07 m long with a diameter of 18 cm, the fuselage was packed with 1,200 envelopes.^[2] Unfortunately for Zucker both rockets exploded, though most of the smaller second cargo, which included survivors of the first, was saved.^[3][4]

Stephen Smith, a Secretary of the Indian Airmail Society, combined his work with his interest in rocketry. His first launch was on 30 September 1934, and he experimented with 270 more by 4 December 1944. 80 of these contained mail, and his achievements include the first successful rocket mail sent over a river and the first rocket to carry a parcel. The Oriental Fireworks Company supplied Smith with 16 rockets between 23 March 1935 and 29 June 1935. Between them, these "Silver Jubilee" flights carried over a thousand covers. In 1992 the Indian government issued a stamp to celebrate the centenary of Smith's birth, calling him "the originator of rocket mail in India".^[5][6]

United States Postal Service

The first successful delivery of mail by a rocket in the United States was made on 23 February 1936, when two rockets that were launched from the New Jersey shore of Greenwood Lake landed on the New York shore, some 300 metres away.^[7][8]

In 1959 the U.S. Navy submarine USS Barbero assisted the Post Office Department, predecessor to the United States Postal Service (USPS) in its search for faster mail transportation with the only delivery of "Missile Mail". On 8 June 1959, Barbero fired a Regulus cruise missile — its nuclear warhead having earlier been replaced by two Post Office Department mail containers — at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida. Twenty-two minutes later, the missile struck its target. The Regulus cruise missile was launched with a pair of Aerojet-General 3KS-33,000 [3 sec duration, 33,000 lbf (150 kN) thrust] solid-propellant boosters. A turbojet engine sustained the long-range cruise flight after the boosters were dropped.

USS Barbero first day commemorative cover. The return address is thePostmaster General.

The USPS had officially established a branch post office on Barbero and delivered some 3000 pieces of mail to it before Barbero left Norfolk, Virginia. The mail consisted entirely of commemorative postal covers addressed to President of the United StatesDwight Eisenhower, other government officials, the Postmasters General of all members of the Universal Postal Union, and so on. They contained letters from United States Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield. Their postage (four cents domestic, eight cents international) had been cancelled "USS Barbero Jun 8 9.30am 1959" before the boat put to sea. In Mayport, the Regulus was opened and the mail forwarded to the post office in Jacksonville, Florida, for sorting and routing.

Upon witnessing the missile's landing, Summerfield stated, "This peacetime employment of a guided missile for the important and practical purpose of carrying mail, is the first known official use of missiles by any Post Office Department of any nation."^[9] Summerfield proclaimed the event to be "of historic significance to the peoples of the entire world",^[10] and predicted that "before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."^[11]

Notwithstanding the Postmaster General's enthusiasm, in reality the Department of Defense saw the measure more as a demonstration of U.S. missile capabilities. Experts believe that the cost of using missile mail could never be justified.^[12]

[edit]Russian submarine launches

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has made a few experimental rocket mail launches from nuclear submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk toward western Russia, using now-surplus missiles.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Reusable launch vehicles

Technologists like Robert Zubrin, of Mars Society fame, think that rocket mail, or at least ultra-elite business package delivery, may become commercially viable with the development of fully reusable launch systems, particularly single-stage to orbit vehicles. Such systems would allow package delivery anywhere in the world in 30–45 minutes. This idea has been forwarded by Zubrin and was the original business plan behind Pioneer Rocketplane (now Rocketplane Limited, Inc.), which he co-founded. Zubrin has since left the company, which is now focused on pursuing a somewhat more conventional space tourismstrategy. The potential of package delivery with reusable launch vehicles is discussed in Zubrin's book Entering Space.^[13]

On 3 December 2005, XCOR Aerospace flew its EZ-Rocket (a rocket-powered Long-EZ aircraft the company built as a demonstrator for its reusable rocket engines) from Mojave, California to California City, California, both in Kern County. Test pilot Dick Rutan made the flight which lasted about 9 minutes and carried US mail from the post office in Mojave to addresses in California City onboard. This was the first time that a manned, rocket-powered aircraft was used to carry US Mail.^[14]

Occurrences in popular culture

During the mid-1950s, "amateur" rocketeers flew a number of zinc dust / sulfur "micrograin" solid propellant mail-carrying rockets interstate, from California, across the Colorado River, and into Arizona. The postal covers were printed for each occasion, and franked at the nearest destination post office.

Mail is delivered by rocket in an early chapter of Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Specifically, Roger Mexico receives orders from A.C.H.T.U.N.G. this way.

Ethan Hunt's computerized sunglasses (for a mission briefing) are delivered by a missile with a ground-piercing spike on the nose, fired from a shoulder-mounted tube, at the start of the John Woo film Mission: Impossible II.

Bill Bryson mentions missile mail in his 2006 memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

RocketMail was the name for one of the first major, free webmail services. For a brief time, RocketMail battled with Hotmail for the number-one spot among free webmail services. Yahoo! acquired RocketMail in 1997, and assimilated it into Yahoo! Mail, which is essentially the old RocketMail Webmail system.

See also

• XCOR EZ-Rocket delivered mail in 2005

Some of you may be disappointed in the sense that it is not as fast as email. I wish it was. I am expecting a package soon, I have high hopes for it, but I don't think Amazon® will ship it that way when they say, "Express Mail."

The Daumenator has looked it up

Bogarting the Microphone

I recently snuck onto a stage and spoke into the idle microphone that was located there. The stage had been empty for quite some time and most of the audience was gone or just there for any purpose other than what the original audience was there for. I know that sounded really confusing, but how else are you going to say that people were just standing around after the speech was over?

Anyway, I began to take ahold of the microphone's power. I asked for shout outs from my audience. None came, but I was the microphone guy. I would not be silenced. Should I have been? Definitely. I was abusing my privileges. I was asking for "holla's" and "woot woot's." They were all definitely uncalled for.

But then the worst in me appeared. I started beat boxing. Oh the shame in that! I tried mostly quick beats that I would set up for someone to start free-styling to, but no one took me up on that offer. In the end, I was a fool on a stage spitting on a microphone.

I have written several songs lately. They have been mostly theme songs for my pals. Recently, I have created a remix of a gospel song. I was inspired by the Kanye West and Jay-z song, "Otis," which is a remix of Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness." For this song, I have remixed a song by the Heavenly Gospel Singers called "Walk in the Light." WARNING: This is not good. This is just a product of being bored and having the app Garage Band with you. I planned on rapping to this, but no one wanted to collaborate with me. That project has been put on hold until further notice. But for now, I present to you: A Gospel Remix

Hey, don't say I didn't warn you. I told you it was going to be bad. I was messing around with beats and that is what I came up with. To make it up to you, however, I have decided to share with you my theme song. It has no words, but I like to get funky to it. It is one of my top played songs on iTunes, mainly because I left it on repeat, it is a short song, and I went to go to the bathroom and forgot I kept playing it over and over and over and over and over again. But for now, I present to you: My Theme Song

The Daumenator has written