Miscellany
My goals for the week: Practice my Dotzauer three more times and...write in this thing every day for the entire week. Just to see if I can do it.
So, with that in mind, I give you...miscellany! (I just love that word...)
Miscellaneous Bit #1:
Reconciling what seems like a hundred-thousand numbers is NO FUN! Especially because it was my very own screw-up(s) that brought about me having to do this reconciliation. 'Course, if The Powers That Be at my company didn't decide to arbitrarily and totally change the entire accounting system for one of our projects, which was started last summer, I wouldn't have had to move around what seems like a hundred-thousand numbers, and, in the process, I wouldn't have made the mistakes(s) that resulted in a mere $340.27 difference between the sum of those numbers in the old accounting system and the new accounting system. Now I have to go and track down that $340.27 in numbers that total a hair under $6,000,000. I repeat, NO FUN!
I hate accounting. Why do I do this for a living? Oh, I remember! It's because of things like Item #3 on this list. But still, to quote Bill the Cat: PTPPPPPPPPPPPPPPBHT! :p
Miscellaneous Bit #2
Because I found the "Top 10 Ways to Destroy the Earth" list so very amusing, I decided to go to the source page of it, which contained still more amusement. I, being the horribly sacreligious soul that I am at heart, was particularly amused by #8 on the "Not as Scientifically Probable" list, even if I don't entirely agree with the "theology" therein:
8: Destroyed by God
You will need: God
Method: Far be it from me to dictate whether God does or does not exist, but if he did, and was omnipotent, then no doubt he could destroy the Earth at a mere thought if he should decide to. Of course, the question arises of how we persuade him to do this.
The first idea which springs to mind is to simply bring about the Apocalypse described in the Christian Bible. Assuming the book of Revelations is an accurate, literal depiction of future events, verse 1 of chapter 21 reads "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea".
It seems astounding that the complete destruction of an entire planet (and heaven, too) would only be worth a single sentence in this lengthy account of the End Times. But on the other hand:
1. The New International Version of the Bible has "earth" written with a lower-case "e", which suggests that this verse could merely refer to, you know, the ground.
2. This verse could be merely metaphorical - after all, so is the creation story described in Genesis.
3. It could be that the new Earth is the same as the old Earth, and "new" just means it was "wiped clean" in some sense, like an Etch-A-Sketch.
In all three cases, the new Earth would still need destroying for real.
I'm not sure what the minimum conditions are for the Apocalypse to begin. If somebody who has a clue could let me know, that would be great.
Another suggestion, should Judaic mythology turn out to be correct, is finding and killing one or more of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim, 36 righteous men whose role in life is to justify the purpose of mankind in the eyes of God. If even one of these is missing, it is said the world would come to an end. Practically speaking, it would probably be easier to wipe out humanity than to find one of these individuals, who do not themselves know who they are.
Comments: It is of course entirely possible that the means God would choose to use to destroy the Earth would be a natural, non-miraculous event such as one of those listed above.
Earth's final resting place: Potentially any form, anywhere.
Feasibility rating: This, naturally, is entirely subjective.
Oh, and:
#9 on the same list is fun, too:
9: Mike Trainor writes, "Just because we don't have the technology to destroy the planet doesn't mean no one else in the universe does. What you need to do is to point our most powerful radio-telescope transmitters at likely solar systems and taunt them. 'The girly-beings in your miserable solar system could never destroy a planet as cool as this one...'"
Thanks, Mike. We'll get SETI on it.
Miscellaneous Bit #3
Had a wee talk with the owner of my company this morning. The upshot:
The bad news: He wants to sell my Subaru to reduce his overhead because he's freaking out over a situation we have here at the office. (See my open letter that I posted a few weeks ago for a glimpse of the kooky situation.)
The good news: He wants to sell the Subaru to me. For -- Get this -- just the payoff amount on the loan. Which, I might add, is less than $8,000 because he paid for about three-quarters of the car in cash when he bought it about 10 months ago. So, I can get a totally loaded, toy-laden 2005 Outback with less than 20,000 miles on it for less than $8,000. Which is what they call A Sweet Deal.
Which is further sweetened by the fact that he says he'll still pay the insurance and maintenance on it and that I can still use the company gas account for as long as I work for him. I'll just have to register the car in my name instead of his once we figure everything out. 'Course, since I'm paying so little for it, registration won't cost that much. (Registration in Colorado is figured initially as a percentage of the purchase price and then goes down incrementally every year after that.) He just doesn't want the car in his name anymore because he's afraid that if a lawsuit happens it could be taken away from him, thus screwing both him as the owner of it and me as the driver of it. And he says that we'll figure out a way to do all this in a way that won't break me, too. We have to talk about the details of doing this over the next couple of days or so.
So, soon, my beloved Outback will actually be mine and not a company car. Which means I will be able to stick a big, fat Decepticon symbol on it. :) And my copyright-infringing "Cellist Inside" sticker, too. :D
Miscellaneous Bit #4
So, since I'm "inheriting" the Outback, apparently, I can sell the DeceptiBuick without worries. (I'd been wanting to hold on to it in case the Outback went bye-bye for some reason.) According to the Kelley Blue Book, I can fairly sell it for $3,400 with the new tires and battery that I just had put on/in it, and deducting for the new front and rear brakes that it still needs that, now, I don't think I'm going to bother fixing. The other incidental maintenance it needs apparently doesn't affect the overall value car. And that $3,400, friends, is almost half of the purchase price of the Outback. Yes, indeed. :)
Assuming, of course, that I can find a buyer... Anyone interested? ;)
So, with that in mind, I give you...miscellany! (I just love that word...)
Miscellaneous Bit #1:
Reconciling what seems like a hundred-thousand numbers is NO FUN! Especially because it was my very own screw-up(s) that brought about me having to do this reconciliation. 'Course, if The Powers That Be at my company didn't decide to arbitrarily and totally change the entire accounting system for one of our projects, which was started last summer, I wouldn't have had to move around what seems like a hundred-thousand numbers, and, in the process, I wouldn't have made the mistakes(s) that resulted in a mere $340.27 difference between the sum of those numbers in the old accounting system and the new accounting system. Now I have to go and track down that $340.27 in numbers that total a hair under $6,000,000. I repeat, NO FUN!
I hate accounting. Why do I do this for a living? Oh, I remember! It's because of things like Item #3 on this list. But still, to quote Bill the Cat: PTPPPPPPPPPPPPPPBHT! :p
Miscellaneous Bit #2
Because I found the "Top 10 Ways to Destroy the Earth" list so very amusing, I decided to go to the source page of it, which contained still more amusement. I, being the horribly sacreligious soul that I am at heart, was particularly amused by #8 on the "Not as Scientifically Probable" list, even if I don't entirely agree with the "theology" therein:
8: Destroyed by God
You will need: God
Method: Far be it from me to dictate whether God does or does not exist, but if he did, and was omnipotent, then no doubt he could destroy the Earth at a mere thought if he should decide to. Of course, the question arises of how we persuade him to do this.
The first idea which springs to mind is to simply bring about the Apocalypse described in the Christian Bible. Assuming the book of Revelations is an accurate, literal depiction of future events, verse 1 of chapter 21 reads "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea".
It seems astounding that the complete destruction of an entire planet (and heaven, too) would only be worth a single sentence in this lengthy account of the End Times. But on the other hand:
1. The New International Version of the Bible has "earth" written with a lower-case "e", which suggests that this verse could merely refer to, you know, the ground.
2. This verse could be merely metaphorical - after all, so is the creation story described in Genesis.
3. It could be that the new Earth is the same as the old Earth, and "new" just means it was "wiped clean" in some sense, like an Etch-A-Sketch.
In all three cases, the new Earth would still need destroying for real.
I'm not sure what the minimum conditions are for the Apocalypse to begin. If somebody who has a clue could let me know, that would be great.
Another suggestion, should Judaic mythology turn out to be correct, is finding and killing one or more of the Lamed Vav Tzadikim, 36 righteous men whose role in life is to justify the purpose of mankind in the eyes of God. If even one of these is missing, it is said the world would come to an end. Practically speaking, it would probably be easier to wipe out humanity than to find one of these individuals, who do not themselves know who they are.
Comments: It is of course entirely possible that the means God would choose to use to destroy the Earth would be a natural, non-miraculous event such as one of those listed above.
Earth's final resting place: Potentially any form, anywhere.
Feasibility rating: This, naturally, is entirely subjective.
Oh, and:
#9 on the same list is fun, too:
9: Mike Trainor writes, "Just because we don't have the technology to destroy the planet doesn't mean no one else in the universe does. What you need to do is to point our most powerful radio-telescope transmitters at likely solar systems and taunt them. 'The girly-beings in your miserable solar system could never destroy a planet as cool as this one...'"
Thanks, Mike. We'll get SETI on it.
Miscellaneous Bit #3
Had a wee talk with the owner of my company this morning. The upshot:
The bad news: He wants to sell my Subaru to reduce his overhead because he's freaking out over a situation we have here at the office. (See my open letter that I posted a few weeks ago for a glimpse of the kooky situation.)
The good news: He wants to sell the Subaru to me. For -- Get this -- just the payoff amount on the loan. Which, I might add, is less than $8,000 because he paid for about three-quarters of the car in cash when he bought it about 10 months ago. So, I can get a totally loaded, toy-laden 2005 Outback with less than 20,000 miles on it for less than $8,000. Which is what they call A Sweet Deal.
Which is further sweetened by the fact that he says he'll still pay the insurance and maintenance on it and that I can still use the company gas account for as long as I work for him. I'll just have to register the car in my name instead of his once we figure everything out. 'Course, since I'm paying so little for it, registration won't cost that much. (Registration in Colorado is figured initially as a percentage of the purchase price and then goes down incrementally every year after that.) He just doesn't want the car in his name anymore because he's afraid that if a lawsuit happens it could be taken away from him, thus screwing both him as the owner of it and me as the driver of it. And he says that we'll figure out a way to do all this in a way that won't break me, too. We have to talk about the details of doing this over the next couple of days or so.
So, soon, my beloved Outback will actually be mine and not a company car. Which means I will be able to stick a big, fat Decepticon symbol on it. :) And my copyright-infringing "Cellist Inside" sticker, too. :D
Miscellaneous Bit #4
So, since I'm "inheriting" the Outback, apparently, I can sell the DeceptiBuick without worries. (I'd been wanting to hold on to it in case the Outback went bye-bye for some reason.) According to the Kelley Blue Book, I can fairly sell it for $3,400 with the new tires and battery that I just had put on/in it, and deducting for the new front and rear brakes that it still needs that, now, I don't think I'm going to bother fixing. The other incidental maintenance it needs apparently doesn't affect the overall value car. And that $3,400, friends, is almost half of the purchase price of the Outback. Yes, indeed. :)
Assuming, of course, that I can find a buyer... Anyone interested? ;)