Issue #7 (10-18-01)
by Gerry Wang
Access archives.
I am proudly announcing the inaugural .
This will be an honor bestowed upon people who do good deeds for Rice World.
Dogfather will be in first recipient of this honor once his MONSTERS, INC.
review comes in.
You too can win this award. As you know, I write really lame Top 10 lists. This
is why I'd greatly appreciate it if you submitted some of your own. If I pick
one of yours to post up in an issue of Gerry's Weird Shit, you will receive the .
Rants and Ravings
Has anyone heard about the
eerie Wingdings Prophecy? Open up Microsoft Word and type in
"Q33NY," which supposedly is the flight number of one of the
planes that hit the WTC Towers. Then highlight everything and select the
Wingdings font. You should get something like this:
Q33NY = Q33NY
If you change "NYC" to Webdings font, it should like this:
NYC
Now try "NYC" as Wingdings, which should look like:
NYC
People have said this is some kind of Nostradamus-like prophecy embedded in
our computers, but get real. When MS first made the Wingdings font, people
complained that it looked like an anti-Semitic message when someone typed in
the initials of New York City. This was all a big coincidence, so MS later
adds Webdings and purposely makes it say "I Love New York," to
appease the conspiracy theorists.
Then someone gets creative and says "Q33NY" was the name of a
flight number when it was not, just so "33" can look like two
buildings. They're actually documents. So don't believe this hoax. But I
have to admit, I had to rub my eyes a couple times when I first did it. Very
spooky, but unfortunately, there's nothing supernatural about it.
Anyone catch the series
premiere of "Smallville" last Tuesday? I thought it had an
interesting premise, but I have doubts about its longevity. It seems like
the storylines will become exhausted pretty soon. How much
Superman-as-a-loser-teen can we stomach? As you all know, "Smallville"
is about Clark Kent as a freshman in high school, set in a small itty bitty
town in Kansas. He's afraid of his powers and is suffering through typical
teen angst. Just imagine that Dawson all of a sudden has super powers, and
you have "Smallville" in a nutshell, complete w/ guitar heavy pop
songs. I'll continue to watch because I like how it's concept-driven, but I
can see myself getting bored of this "Roswell"-like teen drama.
I do like the actors though. They're all talented, and fit their roles well.
I particularly like the Clark Kent-Lex Luthor friendship plot device. Sorta
reminds me of UNBREAKABLE, where the villain's evil isn't brought to the
forefront immediately. Bring back Teri Hatcher!
There are two lengths of rope.
Each one can burn in exactly one hour.
They are not necessarily of the same length or width as each other.
They also are not of uniform width (may be wider in middle than on the end),
thus burning half of the rope is not necessarily 1/2 hour.
By burning the ropes, how do you measure exactly 45 minutes worth of time?
(Think about it first, the scroll down
to the bottom for the answer)
This baseball postseason has
seriously been shocking. Just a week ago, Rice's picks would've seemed dead
on. But now, he only got 1 out of 4 series correct, no thanks to the choke
jobs by Oakland and Cleveland. I felt all along the Yankees would go back to
the World Series once they added Mike Mussina, so they're still my pick. But
for the NL, I'm gonna have to go w/ Atlanta. I like the Diamondbacks, but
outside of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, they got shit for a starting
rotation.
2001 World Series
VS.
This is not the matchup I wanted. Two teams that I'm sick of seeing. I'm
sure the ratings will be an all time low. I would've loved to see either
Oakland or Seattle representing the AL, and either St. Louis or Arizona as
the NL Champs. But I guess experience goes a long way.....
Top 10 List: Voice Actors
One of the most underappreciated jobs in the world is being a voice actor. Most of the time, people don't know the real person behind their favorite cartoon characters, because the characters seem so real. Homer Simpson feels like an old neighbor to me. But did you know the guy who does his voice also does Krusty the Clown? I never would've guessed it.
These 10 people deserve some recognition after all these years. A good voice actor makes you believe that his/her character is really alive, and not some actor playing him. Like in Final Fantasy, everyone could tell that was Alec Baldwin schmoozing his way through the movie. W/ the exception of Eddie Murphy, none of these guys are well-known. But who could honestly say that Bugs Bunny hasn't touched their lives?
1.) Mel Blanc --> Looney Tunes - Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzales, Foghorn Leghorn
2.) Dan Castellaneta --> The Simpsons - Homer Simpson, Grandpa, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby
3.) Seth McFarlane --> Family Guy - Peter Griffin, Stewie, Brian
4.) Harry Shearer --> The Simpsons - Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, Rev. Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Kent Brockman
5.) Hank Azaria --> The Simpsons - Apu, Moe, Chief Wiggum, Dr. Nick Riviera, Comic Book Guy
6.) Eddie Murphy --> Mulan, The PJ's, Shrek - The donkey from Shrek, The dragon from Mulan, Thurgood in the PJ's
7.) Robert Smigel --> TV Funhouse - Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Talking lips on Conan O'Brien
8.) Mike Judge --> Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill - Beavis, Butthead, Hank Hill, Boomhauer
9.) Matt Stone & Trey Parker --> South Park - Matt --> Kyle, Kenny, Pip, Philip; Trey --> Stan, Cartman, Mr. Garrison, Terrence
10.) Frank Oz --> Star Wars, The Muppets, Sesame Street - Yoda, Miss Piggy, Bert, Grover, Cookie Monster, Fozzie
Pictorial Tribute: Alicia Witt
Seeing that we've had many different breeds of women here--let's see, we've had Asian, Hispanic, White, brunette, Goth, and Vulcan, respectively--I decided that next in line would be redhead. Naturally, Nikki Cox was the first to pop in mind. But being the rebel that I am, I decided not to go mainstream.
ANSWER:
If you light both ends of one rope, it will burn in exactly a 1/2 hour. Thus, burn one rope from both ends and the other rope from only one end.
Once the one rope (which is burning from both ends) finally burns out (and you know a 1/2 hour has elapsed), you also know that the other rope (which is buring from only one end) has exactly 1/2 hour left to burn.
Since you only want 45 minutes, light the second end of the rope. This remaining piece will burn in 15 minutes. Thus, totaling 45 minutes.