Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

Isn’t it unfortunate that there is a country and a state of a country with the same name? The statement “I’m from Georgia” is therefore ambiguous.

But Georgia is interesting for another reason. It is part of a group of countries with a special characteristic. Can you guess how Georgia, Albania, Brazil, Cuba and Thailand are related? (there are other countries with this property — 61 to be exact).

If you give up, you can click here for the answer.

anybody else see this? very weird…

We arrived today in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the less renowned half of the former Czechoslovakia. Though their countryside is largely regrettably unremarkable, Bratislava, for what it’s worth, is home to a disproportionate number of Europe’s most beautiful women. Some trick of genetic recombination has left its mark on this forgotten corner of the world.

We left Germany and, after getting lost, are now in the Czech republic. Prague is surely in the top five most beautiful cities in the world. The cathedrals, the castle, the people are all fantastic. My iPhone is still wacked up as is my gps tracker. We’ll chat more soon.

It is past midnight and I am in a hostel somewhere in Frankfurt germany. I will be here for a while and if I figure out how to use this iPhone I will post some pics of my adventures. hey, it’s not a 5k, right?

I’ve had a fair number of requests for more details on the recent Miami trip. One place I walked past was Miami Ink, a tattoo parlor upon which a popular TLC reality TV series is apparently based. I snapped the fuzzy pic to the right. Full disclosure requries me to state that I don’t have any tattoos, nor have I any interest in getting one. That said, I am like many of you, a social observer and this is what I’ve discovered about tattoos:

Tattoo Placement and Content
Girls have four tattoo location possibilities designated by current style:

• Shoulder blade
• Lower back (derisively referred to as a tramp stamp)
• Ankle
• Upper leg/bikini region

Girls can choose: a butterfly, heart, fairy, star, or cross. Mystical/eastern characters and scripts are also becoming popular.

For a guy, there are only two area choices:

• Bicep (Celtic or tribal swirl), which sometimes extends up to the shoulder or down to the forearm
• Across the top back

Popular male tattoo selections include: Chinese characters, your last name, your nickname, your girlfriend’s name, something mean (dragon), or a woman image (often not child-friendly.)

FACT: Tattoos are called “tats” by those who have them
Funny Tattoo Instructions.

Maybe you have capabilities that don’t get much use? Well, there’s a new website that lists all of those obsolete skills. Here are a few from the collection:

• Adjusting Rabbit Ears On Top Of A TV
• Asbestos Installation
• Booting Off A Floppy Disk
• Cleaning Head Of A VCR
• Using A Microfiche
• Using Correction Fluid

We’ve mentioned before that as a result of climate change there are fewer killer bees. Cynic Michael Crowe adds:

The iceberg which sunk the Titanic
is now the size of an ice cube
and is no longer a threat to human life.
Cheers.

Recently, I reviewed Julian Baggini’s book The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten. Have you gone out and bought it yet? If not, here are a few more moral dilemma tidbits from that book to entice you:

• “‘Waste not, want not,’ was Delia’s motto. She has a great respect for the thriftiness of her parents’ generation, people who have lived through the war and most of their lives with relatively little. She had learned a lot from them, skills virtually no one her age had, such as how to skin a rabbit and make tasty, simple dishes from offal. So when she heard a scream of breaks one day outside her suburban semi in Hounslow, and went outside to find that Tiddles, the family cat, had been struck by a car, her first thoughts were not just of regret and sadness, but practicalities. The feline had been bashed but not run over. In effect, it was a lump of meat just waiting to be eaten.” Why are some animals like cats and dogs just wrong to eat? (#57)
• How much free speech should people have? Do people have the right to say *anything* they want? How do you define hate speech? (#33)
• How is marriage like the Prisoner’s Dilemma? (#44)
• Can you be truly moral and still have complete faith in God? What if God asks you to do something immoral? (Like commanding Abraham to kill his son?) (#58)
• Why do we dislike forgeries? If someone could reproduce a famous paining so that it was indistinguishable from the original, shouldn’t it be valued the same? (#66)
• It’s said that how you’d act if you were invisible reveals your true moral nature. Is that fair? (#75)
• It is a good idea for everyone to maintain a minimal commitment to God, just in case? (#78)
• Is it OK to download songs for free that you would not otherwise purchase? Is it OK to freeload off your neighbor’s wireless Internet connection if your usage doesn’t affect theirs? (#82)
• A train is racing down the tracks where you stand at a junction. Down one lane, in a narrow tunnel, are 40 men repairing a section of track. Down a secondary track is your deaf son playing. If you do nothing, the train will shoot down the first track, into the tunnel, and kill the 40 men. If you move a lever, the train will change direction and proceed down the other and run over your son. Your decision is to kill your son, or to let 40 people die. What do you do? (#89)
• You are a doctor working the late shift alone. At 1 am the life support alarm sounds for Jon, an autistic child in room 1. You rise from your chair and grab your emergency gear just as a second support alarm goes off for a prominent scientist at the other end of the hallway. You’ll only be able to save one of the patients. Who do you choose? Would it matter if one of them was your brother? The president? The Pope? (#96)

I went to Seattle to see me some cattle
but really not cattle, but did see a bull.
but it was a lion, but not like a tiger
but more like a fish, or a seal or a gull.

I was out in the harbor, out on a small boat
the sun was a shinin’ and we were afloat.
Did I say it was sunny? (I’m not being funny)
it really was out,I’ll even bet money…

But let us not argue, let’s not get all huffy
I’m coming from Utah, where clouds are all fluffy.
And come snow or come hail, come sun or come rain
I’m back in that city, Seattle Again!

Much needed podcast (for all the haters)