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Defining Your Life

Masterchef Mark has one of those Facebooky things up at his place:

Find the nearest book.
Go to page 73, 2nd paragraph down, 3rd sentence WILL DEFINE YOUR LIFE

I love these things because I love the absurdity of things taken out of context. So...

Closest book was "COBOL For Beginners". Page 73 was a bullet-point list describing the features of the PERFORM keyword. No paragraphs, no bullet point had more than one sentence. Fail.

Next closest "book" was a printout of the United States Postal Service's "NCOALink Software Developer Guide". Page 73 has two charts describing how to properly use approved nicknames when doing an address lookup. Only one paragraph. Fail.

Next closest book is a reference manual. Pages are not numbered. Fail.

At which point I give up and conclude the obvious: my life is defined by reference manuals.

Associated Artists

I haven’t done this in a while. Given two musicians, find the shortest path between them, a la “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”.

For example: take Joe Walsh and Mick Fleetwood, you can go: Joe Walsh -> Don Henley (both in the Eagles) -> Stevie Nicks (they did a duet) -> Mick Fleetwood (in Fleetwood Mac).

To be a valid link, the two musicians must have been a member of the same band or played together on at least one recorded and released song. Jamming together at Farm Aid doesn't count, nor does record production, nor does doing a cover song.

OK?

Simple.

So, try this: Trent Reznor to Luther Vandross.

I can do it with four steps in between. There might be fewer steps, and there are certainly ways to do it in more steps.

I'll turn on hidden comments until someone gets it.

Bold!

Our wise leader, Obama, has made a tough and prudent decision. He has proposed freezing Federal worker pay. This step, while a drag for Federal workers, would save this country a lot of money.

How much money?

$2,000,000,000. Two billion dollars in 2011 alone.

And that's a lot of money.

Why, it's enough to fund the Department of Defense for an entire day.

And, as a bonus, Congressional Republicans (and nobody else) love the idea.

Bold!