SCuF for April 30, 2011

So, it's Saturday, time for the SCuF (Saturday Cuteness Factor)!

Without further ado, image one.

 

 

 

Fluffiness            2 

Size (Tinier=better)  4

Affection             2

Anthropomorphism      0

Roundness             2

Eyes (Bigger=better)  3

Harmlessness          4

Total:               17

Explanation time!

Fluffiness - 2: Chihuahua's are furry but not really fluffy

Size - 4: This picture is definitely cheating in the size category, it's a chihuahua for crying out loud! The smallest dog in the world!

Affection - 2: This dog doesn't look so much affectionate as it looks bored, it doesn't even seem to care that it's getting its picture taken.

Anthropomorphism - 0: Honestly, this doesn't really look human-y tome at all, it just look dog-ish.

Roundness - 2: Okay, so his head is a little round but other than that you don't get much else.

Eyes - 3: In proportion to it's body, a little chihuahua has gigantic eyes, I just feel that if this one tried a little harder he could make his eyes HUUUUGE.

Harmlessness - 4: Like I said earlier, this dog looks bored, he ain't gonna hurt you at all.

So that gives this lazy chihuahua a score of 17, which, after a quick review is a record low. OUCH!

So, let's see what image two has for us.

 

 

 

 

Fluffiness            4

Size (Tinier=better)  4

Affection             4

Anthropomorphism      3

Roundness             3

Eyes (Bigger=better)  1

Harmlessness          5

Total:               24

 

 

 

 

Explanation:

Fluffiness - 4: The combined power of a fluffy baby chick and a big lazy furry St. Bernard gives this one a high fluff score.

Size - 4: This score is based, not so much on the size of both parties in the picture, but more on the juxtaposition, A St. Bernard will weigh, on average, 200 lbs, a baby chicken, however weighs 0.088184 lbs, which means this dog is approximately 2270 times the size of this chick, yet it is not crushing it. CUUUTE!

Affection - 4: These two look like they're about to freaking kiss each other, there's so much affection here, yeesh.

Anthropomorphism - 3: Other than the stated near-kiss that these two are doing, there's not much human-like about them.

Roundness - 3: A baby chick is inherently round, and a St. Bernard is somewhat rounded as well, but this picture might get a higher score if we had been able to see the roundness of the dog as well as the chick.

Eyes -1: Alas, the lowest score of this picture, it is because you can't really see a St. Bernard's eyes and the chick just doesn't have huge eyes anyways.

Harmlessness - 5: One look at this picture and you see that these two are in no position to harm each other at all, that chick wouldn't even get a scratch on that dog and that dog is too big and lazy to even try.

So, all tallied up that gives this picture a 24, which, surprisingly is a record high, easy to see who wins this one! Join me next week when I apply science to another set of pictures.

R-WAD for April 27th 2011: Stan Goldberg

So, it's random Wikipedia article day and today's random Wikipedia article is on a man by the name of Stan Goldberg

This guy!

So, if you're looking at the picture and thinking "eeeeeeewwwwww, he's an old guy." Then first, I have to agree with you, he is old. Second, do you know who else is old? Stan Lee, yeah, the guy who's responsible for all your favorite superheros that aren't Superman or Batman. "Why are you talking about Stan Lee in an article about ugly old Stan Goldberg," you ask? Well because this guy is responsible for Spider-man wearing red and blue. And I quote: "Stan [Lee] was writing Fantastic Four, Spider-man and all those books. I was doing the initial colouring on all those books; I was creating the colour schemes on all those characters" (Adelai Comics and Books). That's right, this guy put The Fantastic Four in blue, and Spider-man in red and blue. Also, he spells color weird, especially weird since he was born in New York.

Anyway, Stan started out working  for Timely Comics (which was essentially the baby form to Marvel's full-grown adult) in 1949. In two years he had worked his way into the position of coloring-department manager and was in charge of, as he put it, coloring "every cover the rest of the decade," and during that time Timely Comics grew into the adolescent form, Atlas Comics.

In 1958 Stan went freelance and eventually ended up doing a lot of the coloring for Marvel. In 1968 he stopped doing freelance work for Marvel and then started being more associated with the Archie comics. He's did work for the Archie Comics up until mid-2006, since then it seems he's slowed down but still does a little bit of freelance work from time to time.

I get the feeling that a man like that never really grows up, sure he has to deal with adult issues, (bills, bills, bills, etc.) and now, because of his age (he'll be 79 on May 5th this year) he probably even has to deal with old person issues, (liver spots, sciatica, lumbago, rutabaga, asparagus, etc.) but he still probably finds the time and energy to add his own little touch to a few comics here and there. If there's one lesson I can learn from Stan Goldberg it's this. Never grow up, but even if you do, add a bit of you as a kid to everything you do.

Saturday Cuteness Factor(SCuF) April 23, 2011

Okay, so I was supposed to write this last night and post it this morning, but I got lazy. So, without any further ado, it's the SATURDAY CUTENESS FACTOR!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem, so Image 1

Fluffiness            2 

Size (Tinier=better)  3

Affection             2

Anthropomorphism      4

Roundness             2

Eyes (Bigger=better)  1

Harmlessness          4

Total:               18

Explanations:

Fluffiness - 2: This cat is furry, but not really fluffy. Furriness and fluffiness are two different (but slightly related) things. This cat is not really in the category of the super fluffy, hence below average.

Size - 3: I gave this cat an average score in size. Why? Well, first of all it doesn't seem like a kitten. though I can't see the whole body, that irked look totally says adolescent, "You just don't understand my pain" kind of cat, however, cats in general are small animals, in relation to us humans, so, being a large small animal, I averaged the two out, which ended up being, um, average.

Affection - 2: This cat is definitely not affectionate, in fact, it almost seems downright hostile, like, "Get that camera away from my face before I claw your eyes out."

Anthropomorphism - 4: This is actually a fairly humanistic pose, who doesn't like resting their head on something and glaring angrily at everyone? I don't mind doing it one bit, that's probably why people think I hate them so much. . .

Roundness - 2: This cat is not very round. in fact as show by this graphic, it is more of a hexagonal shape, even slightly triangular:

Yep, it's got 6 sides on it's face.

Now, as far as I know, a hexagon is not a circle. And this one fails at even being slightly a circle.
Eyes - 1: This one's got tiny eyes, or at least, squinty eyes, not really big ones.
Harmlessness - 4: This cat is just tired, it ain't gonna do anything to actually try to hurt you. It might glare at you with contempt but it's too lazy to get up and beat you up.
Total score is 18/35

Ok, second picture.

Fluffiness            3 

Size (Tinier=better)  4

Affection             2

Anthropomorphism      3

Roundness             4

Eyes (Bigger=better)  4

Harmlessness          4

Total:               23

Let's talk the why!

Fluffiness - 3: This cat is is still not really fluffy but a little bit fluffier than it's angry teenage brother up there.

Size - 4: This is a kitten, kittens are by very definition tiny cats, and cats are some pretty small animals anyway. which means that baby cats are tiny, hence an above average score.

Affection - 2: The emotion that comes to mind when I see this kitten is not affection. It's curiosity, which is good, but according to my very scientific method, does not affect any part of it's score.

Anthropomorphism - 3: The curiousness of this kitten is, in a vague way, human-ish. But not enough to say, "That is a very human-ish thing this kitten is doing."

Roundness - 4: LOOK AT THAT HEAD! This kitten looks like a freaking lollipop, what with that skinny little body.

Eyes - 4: If that head is a lollipop, those eyes are like the gum part in the middle of a blow-pop. Enough that you can't bite into it without getting gum, but not so much that theirs no hard candy.

Harmlessness - 4: The only thing this kitten is gonna hurt is itself,.Y'know, the whole "curiosity killed the cat" thing? Yep, they never say, "curiosity killed the cat and all other life forms around it." Although I wonder if that's more accurate. . . hmm. . . .

So, that gives it a score of 23/35

So the winner is the kitten by 5 points. Although I should mention that my wife disagrees with my score and thinks that lazy cat should win, but the numbers don't lie, it's SCIENCE!

Random Wikipedia Article Day: Robert J. Kleberg (King Ranch)

So, why am I writing about Robert J. Kleberg? Well here's why, it's Wednesday, and the thing about Wednesday is that I go here:

click on where I circled which takes me here:

And Click on where that other circle is, and it takes me to, as can be assumed, a Random article. Today that brought me to Robert J. Kleberg (King Ranch). And now I'm go to tell you what little I know about him and use my imagination to fill in the details this very short article doesn't address.

Kleberg was born in Texas in 1853 To Rose and Robert Kleberg Sr. He attended University of Virginia, and majored in 18th century agrarian business. He then wandered Texas for years looking for some use of his useless degree until he was hired by Richard King as the legal counsel, presumably because King was afraid of an uprising on his Texas ranch, conveniently called King Ranch. When King died, due to a coyote attack, Kleberg took over the ranch. One day, while Kleberg was shooting at some food, up from the ground came a bubbling crude. Oil that is. Black gold. Texas tea. Kleberg died in Texas in 1932, which for those who were the heirs of his massive fortune, was the only bright hope that decade, considering it was some sort of big depression thing at the time.

All right, so without reading the article, tell me, which parts of my account are real and which are fabricated, and if you can tell me what they are fabricated from I will give you 1,000,000 points.*

*Points not redeemable for any assets, tangible or intangible.

Guess what! I'm gonna have a schedule!

Okay all you people, I'm gonna start being a little more organized with this blog. I decided this morning that I could probably start doing a weekly schedule for my posts. So here's my plan, first every Saturday you're gonna get a discussion on why one picture is cuter than another, pictures courtesy of thecutest.info, and quantitative cuteness determined by a possibility of 35 points derived from:

Fluffiness - 5

Size (Tinier=better) - 5

Affection - 5

Anthropomorphism – 5

Roundness – 5

Eyes (Bigger=better) – 5

Harmlessness -5
Also, on every Wednesday I will post a commentary on whatever random Wikipedia article that I pull up. I will also randomly intersperse my own rantings, like I have been, but at least I have a basic schedule to keep to. So, without further ado, onto the SATURDAY CUTENESS FACTOR or the SCuF, as I'll call it.

Okay, today's first picture is:

Fluffiness            2

Size (Tinier=better)  3

Affection             3

Anthropomorphism      4

Roundness             2

Eyes (Bigger=better)  1

Harmlessness          4

Total:               19

Explanation of scores:

Fluffiness - 2: Bears a less fluffy than, say, a bunny, however, these are baby bears, and as such they have a bit more fluff than they will will they grow up. Thus, below average in fluffy but higher than nothing.

Size - 3: Size was tough here, is it size in proportion to humans or in proportion to grown bears, in the end I decided to not worry about that and just average it out.

Affection - 3: On the one hand it looks like the cub on the right is giving his brother a piece of food or something, on the other hand, it could be that the one on the right is getting ready to punch his smart-mouthed sibling in his self-righteous stomach (2 points to me for alliteration). In any case, the uncertainty of what's going on give this an average score.

Anthropomorphism - 4: As stated earlier, the bear on the right looks as though he's giving the other on a sandwich, probably either tuna or knuckle. Giving someone a sandwich is a very human-y thing to do, and so, these little cubs score above average on the "I look human-like" scale.

Roundness - 2: Let's get this out of the way, bear cubs aren't round, but the way that one is standing he looks kind of round, so he gets a just below average score.

Eyes - 1: In proportion to their heads, bears have small eyes. these small eyes are not big eyes, and so, a poor score on this one.

Harmlessness - 4: Bears are not harmless, but baby bears are somewhat harmless. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Mama Bear is standing just outside the shot ready to maul this photographer that's stealing her babies' souls, but these baby's are pretty harmless themselves.

So, that brings us to a total score of 19/35


Okay, second picture:

Fluffiness            3

Size (Tinier=better)  5

Affection             3

Anthropomorphism      4

Roundness             4

Eyes (Bigger=better)  0

Harmlessness          4

Total:               23

Explanation time!

Fluffiness - 3: You may look at this and say, "that's not fluffy, it's spikey!" And I say "Well it LOOKS kinda fluffish," And that is why I gave it an average score.

Size - 5: Seriously, do you need an explanation, it so tiny, you can tell!

Affection - 3: I'm not sure exactly what this little baby sonic is doing, but I'm not sure if it's considered "affectionate." Maybe it's asking for a cookie though in the most adorable way possible. On the off-chance that that's what it's doing, I'm giving this thing an average score.

Anthropomorphism - 4: This just looks like something a human baby would do to get a cookie (as mentioned above), or what any human does while yawning, therefore, above average.

Roundness - 4: The only thing that stops this little thing from getting a perfect 5 here is that it is spiny, which takes away slightly from the roundness.

Eyes - 0: I probably would have given this at least an average score, but I can't see the eyes, so they aren't a factor in my calculations.

Harmlessness - 4: The only thing keeping this from being completely harmless is those spikes, they keep getting in his way of a perfect score. Sad.

Anyway, that brings the total to 23 which means that the little yawning hedgehog beats the fighting bears by 4 points, but don't worry baby bears, you still probably beat someone else, even if it's just your brother.

Thank you for reading the SCuF! Hopefully you enjoyed it. Join me on Wednesday when I will discuss the topic of a random Wikipedia article. THANKS!

Mad Rantings at 2 am

For some reason I feel like blogging at 2 am. Yeah, weird, but I figure it's just a way to get things out, even if nobody reads it. By a raise of hands, how many of you have been in college? Okay, and how many of you were married when you were in college? Finally, how many of you had absolutely no money. Yep, that's where I am right now. Married broke college student. Not that I'm annoyed at the married, or the college student parts, it's the broke that bugs me. I mean, when you hang around 20-something's all the time, you feel like everyone's got everything figured out except you. You feel like everyone's got a better job than you, everyone's got more money. They can afford gas, they can pay rent,  they can buy enough food to feed their family. The worst part, is everyone seems so darn confident about everything. I wish I could feel confident. I wish I could feel like what I'm doing is enough, but every time I get a paycheck it says, "You're not enough." Every time I go to class and don't understand what's going on it feels like everyone in class thinks, "Wow, this is so simple an untrained monkey could figure it out, you moron." So what in the world can I do about it?

I love being married, my wife is fantastic. She believes in me, thinks I can do anything, but, even though that makes me feel a little better, there's so much more in the world that says I can't do things right. I just wish there was some way to fall into a vat of money that's just enough for what you need. I wish we weren't in debt, I wish we didn't have all the bills we had. I want to be able to provide for my wife and make her feel safe, but I think it's impossible to do that when I don't feel safe myself.

So here's the big question? Why in the world am I asking the silly internet about it? The internet is famous for being a place where if you ask a question you're going to get a dumb answer, no matter how intelligent the question is. The internet is a place where people will mock and ridicule you for doing something you love. The internet is for overused cliches where people tell you, "It'll be okay, don't worry, it'll all work out." Well that's fine and dandy and thanks for offering advice on what to do so things work out. I don't need reassurance, I need advice. I don't need stupid answers, I need actual help. I don't need mock and ridicule, I need someone to build me up and make me feel useful to society, if only because I made them smile.

So, I pose this question to the few people on the internet that will read this, what can I do? And I don't need emotional solutions. I'm sorry, but I'm the kind of person that needs people to give me a place to go, a task to accomplish, and a result to expect. I feel like I've wandered around aimlessly for too long. Reassurance is good, but it's better when it comes with meaningful advice on how to solve the problem.

I'm sorry people of the internet for being as angsty as an emo teen. As consolation, here's a picture that will hopefully make you smile.

Thanks, all two of you, for reading my ranting.