Dumb Criminals

If you're appearing on a "Most Wanted" list, chances are you're doing something wrong.

WMUR in New Hampshire released a most wanted listed on Wednesday featuring the wonderful mugshot of Nicholas Emond, and Emond was nice enough to leave a number of comments on the photo that obviously blamed the government for his wrongdoings.



Emond was arrested earlier Friday. Thanks, buddy! Here's a look at some of his comments. He uses the pseudonym "Sin Demon" which is kind of like his name jumbled up. His grammar hurts my brain.



Read more here: http://deadspin.com/fugitive-comments-on-own-most-wanted-photo-on-facebook-1464780683

Max Scherzer

I've been to plenty of Loggers games over the past few years, but in working as the PA announcer for them this past summer, I got to see how much this community loves the team and grows to love the players, even if they're only going to be on the roster for a short period of time.

That's why I'm not surprised to see the outpouring of support for Max Scherzer all season long, but especially last night as he was named the AL Cy Young award winner, given to the best pitcher in the league for the 2013 season.  Scherzer was only a Logger during the 2004 season, but each time I was able to give the crowd updates on how he was doing at a Loggers game, it was always met with a rousing ovation.

Congratulations to Max, the Detroit Tigers and the La Crosse Loggers organization on an impressive award.

Wi-Fi battery power

One of the most frustrating things about my current cell phone (I know, I know, first world problems) is the fact that the battery life is...well...less than desirable. If I'm on the go for the whole day, there's a good chance that I'm gonna need to be on my phone, and an even better chance that the battery is going to die before day's end. Is it too much to ask for a battery to last a full day of normal usage?

There may soon be an answer, and we have college students to thank.

Duke Pratt School of Engineering students Alexander Katko and Allen Hawkes have designed a device capable of picking up wi-fi signals and converting them to usable electrical current. Who needs a power cable when power-filled waves are all around you?
The specifics behind the Duke technology are a bit complex, even for me. But the gist of it is that the students designed a high-efficiency device capable of devouring the power hidden in the invisible waves of energy around us. A small five-cell array was able to pull 7 volts of power from microwaves in thin air — enough to power a small USB device. Want more power? No problem: increasing the amount of usable electricity drawn is as simple as adding another cell to the array.

Photo from the Duke Pratt School of Engineering

Read more: Phones Powered by Wi-Fi Could Make Chargers Obsolete | TIME.com http://www.techlicious.com/blog/wifi-powered-phones-could-make-chargers-obsolete/#ixzz2kSmRExid

Happy Veterans Day

To the over 21 million veterans in the United States today, I want to extend a sincere thank you. What you do transcends the political nonsense you hear today. Left or right, red or blue, I think all 300+ million people need to take a whole lot longer than just one day out of the year to give thanks to the sacrifices you all make. One of the things in my life that I am most proud about is the fact that there is a 2nd lieutenant in the Army that I am proud to call my brother. He, and all of the other active military members as well as veterans, chose a life of service so that I wouldn't have to. So while you go about your regular Monday (and for some, a day off work), remember why you got to sleep in and have a Netflix marathon. It's not because you earned it. It's because our Veterans did.



Today there is a special ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetary. I got a chance to visit in 2012 and it was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Highly encouraged to all that are able to make it at some point. Here are some photos I took from that trip.

Star Wars Christmas

The new JJ Abrams-directed Star Wars film is slated to be released December 18, 2015. I can only imagine how much money that thing is going to make. According to Box Office Mojo, the two highest grossing movies for Christmas Day are Sherlock Holmes at $25M and Avatar at $24M.

Filming of "Star Wars: Episode VII" is slated to begin in Spring of 2014.

Think it will set some records for Christmas is 2015? I certainly do.

Calm down, Packers fans.

I don't know what it is about football, but there is an overreactionary quality amongst many of its fans. For example, when the Packers lost Week 1 against San Francisco, people were ready to throw in the towel. Flash forward eight weeks, and the Packers are 5-2 and on top of the division.

Monday night's injury to Aaron Rodgers provided another opportunity for Packers fans to hit FULL FLEDGED FREAK OUT mode. He's hurt. He ain't dead. The season's not over.



Photo by Mike McGinnis/Getty Images

I think it might be the downtime during the week, with as many as SIX WHOLE DAYS for a fan base to get worked up about a particular issue. People apparently earned an M.D. almost immediately after Rodgers went down in the first quarter against Chicago.

I've heard people say that "Brett Favre would have played with a broken collarbone" which is just inflammatory garbage. I've also heard people proclaim that Rodgers will be out for the season, which isn't impossible but I'd bet anything he returns during the regular season.

As irreplaceable as Aaron Rodgers is, he's going to have to be replaced in the mean time. If fans were thinking Super Bowl before #12 went down, they're going to have to temper those expectations a bit. On the same hand, there are still 52 quality players on the Green Bay roster, and they're not just going to roll over while Rodgers is gone.

The season isn't over by any means. If the Packers can tread water with Seneca Wallace at the helm, they'll be just fine. Hopefully Rodgers can be back for the final 3 or 4 games and lead Green Bay into the playoffs, and hopefully a deep postseason run will follow.

Daylight savings time

Interesting facts about the start of daylight savings from timeanddate.com.

The idea of daylight saving time was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 during his stay in Paris. He published an essay titled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light” that proposed to economize the use of candles by rising earlier to make use of the morning sunlight.

DST was first adopted to replace artificial lighting so they could save fuel for the war effort in Germany during World War I at 11:00pm (23:00) on April 30, 1916. It was quickly followed by Britain and many countries from both sides, including the United States. Many countries reverted back to standard time post-World War I, and it wasn’t until the next World War that DST would make its return to many countries in order to save vital energy resources for the war.

Photo from www.juvenescence.net

President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted year-round DST in the United States, called “War Time” during World War II from February 9, 1942 to September 30, 1945. The law was enforced 40 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and during this time, time zones were called “Eastern War Time”, “Central War Time”, and “Pacific War Time”. After the surrender of Japan in mid-August 1945, the time zones were relabeled “Peace Time”.

Daylight saving was first recognized as an energy saving aspect during World War II when Double Summer Time was applied in Britain which moved the clocks two hours ahead of GMT during the summer and one hour ahead of GMT during the winter.

But according to a 2010 Rasmussen poll, nearly half of Americans (47%) would rather not have daylight savings time, saying it's not worth the hassle.

What say you? Which side of the "argument" are you on?