Mixed Bag

I feel like I really shouldn't do another post about my garden or a veggie theme of any kind or I risk chasing off the 4 of you who actually read this thing. Variety is the spice of life after all so today's posting will be a mixed bag of randomness that I have stumbled across and found interesting:

1. I don't know anything about flowers but I like taking their picture:




In case you were wondering this is a flower my mom is growing and I don't have the foggiest idea what sort of flower it is.


2. There is a test called the wonderlic test. It is a 50 question test that is supposed to gauge an person's aptitude for "learning and problem-solving in a wide range of occupations." A score of 20 indicates average intelligence and corresponds to an IQ of 100. Apparently it is the working world's equivalent of the SAT.

(For sample questions: http://www.professormoney.com/wonderlic%20sample%20test.htm)

Ok, so you probably don't think that in and of itself isn't all that interesting and I didn't either until I found out that pretty much the only company that uses this test to screen future employees, is the NFL. They actually make their pre-draft picks take it, no lie. I find this to be hilarious. Not that football players can't be intelligent people but really, is it really a primary criteria? Well, despite making their draft picks sit through the test, it apparently does not actually play that large a role in the selection process. Here are the average scores per position:

Offensive tackle: 26
Center: 25
Quarterback: 24
Guard: 23
Tight End: 22
Safety: 19
Linebacker: 19
Cornerback: 18
Wide Receiver: 17
Fullback: 17
Halfback: 16

And apparently it shouldn't really guide draft decisions because, as one might guess of a standardized aptitude test, it really isn't a very good indicator of how good someone might be at football. For example Vince Young, the Titan's star QB, scored a SIX on the test. And Dan Marino only scored a 14. Maybe if he'd scored higher he would be wearing a Superbowl ring . . . NO WAY. Don't get me wrong, I am not sure how Mr. Young can dress himself and only score a 6 on this test (i'd like to pause here to offer up a sample question: The ninth month of the year is: October, January, June, September, or May) but I still don't see what it has to do with football.

Now to be fair, there are NFLers who do very well on the test. Like this years Superbowl QBs Tom Brady and Eli Manning who scored a 33 and 39 respectively. Anyway, I think its funny that an IQ test is part of being drafted into the NFL. That's all.

In case you were wondering, here are the average scores of non NFL occupations:

Chemist: 31
Programmer: 29
Journalist: 26
Sales: 24
Bank Teller: 22
Clerical worker: 21
Security Guard: 17
Warehouse worker: 15

Someone should go tell the Security Guard that he could be making millions playing wide receiver for the NFL.

3. Leon Kass was the Chairman of President Bush's Council on Bioethics. He is what one would call extremely right wing, nut job, conservative. For example, he finds eating ice cream uncivilized. For you doubters, here is an excerpt from his book "The Hungry Soul"

"Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone --a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. I fear I may by this remark lose the sympathy of many reader, people who will condescendingly regard as quaint or even priggish the view that eating in the street is for dogs. Modern America's rising tide of informality has already washed out many long-standing traditions -- their reasons long before forgotten -- that served well to regulate the boundary between public and private; and in many quarters complete shamelessness is treated as proof of genuine liberation from the allegedly arbitrary constraints of manners. To cite one small example: yawning with uncovered mouth. Not just the uneducated rustic but children of the cultural elite are now regularly seen yawning openly in public (not so much brazenly or forgetfully as indifferently and "naturally"), unaware that it is an embarrassment to human self-command to be caught in the grip of involuntary bodily movements (like sneezing, belching, and hiccuping and even the involuntary bodily display of embarrassment itself, blushing). But eating on the street -- even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat -- displays in fact precisely such lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. Hunger must be sated now; it cannot wait. Though the walking street eater still moves in the direction of his vision, he shows himself as a being led by his appetites. Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. Eating on the run does not even allow the human way of enjoying one's food, for it is more like simple fueling; it is hard to savor or even to know what one is eating when the main point is to hurriedly fill the belly, now running on empty. This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior."

In case you were wondering, I am still trying to figure out how it is that you can be unaware of the embarrassment of blushing.

4. I have hired a guard dog to protect my garden from vermin intruders. We decided that in order to maximize success we needed to employ the element of surprise. So, Finnegan has gone deep cover:


In case you were wondering, that's all for today.