Saturday, September 12, 2009

Various Thoughts

1. Lately I've been hooked on Yahtzee. I realize this means I am probably a boring person. I'm ok with that. On the bright side, it also means I am mild-mannered and unlikely to get arrested-- unless, of course, Michigan outlaws the use of dice.

2. Last week I tried that new "True Lemon" stuff. It's sweetened with Truvia. Surprisingly, I liked it. That means a lot coming from me, since I usually detest artificial sweeteners. No doubt the scientists will soon discover that it's hazardous to life as we know it, full of deadly poison which is determined to cause cancer and leprosy and toenail fungus.

3. In a perfect world, McDonald's would put more ketchup in each packet so we didn't have to ask for a zillion packets with every order of fries.

4. If there was a giant mile-wide raft made out of styrofoam, how many people could sit on one edge before it tipped over? And if there was no one else in the ocean to hear it tip over, would it still make a sound?
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15 comments:

Anonymous said...

HA! #3 is why I still like to go to Wendy's( at least round here ). They still use those big pump jugs for the ketchup and the little paper cup thingys...

sFunn.com said...

lol.
your profile too is
funny.

Jeff and Charli Lee said...

My wife uses Truvia but it's still so new that it's hard to find in any products, so she'll be glad to hear it's in that lemonade. I guess you could say she's on a Truvial pursuit.

Mr. Condescending said...

Stevia is awesome, it tastes wayy better than sugar.

Jen said...

#3 hell yes! One packet is good for one fry.

Travis Cody said...

Wouldn't a raft made out of styrofoam break as soon as the first person tried to sit on it?

Janna said...

Subtorp: Oh, McD's has the pump and cups too; but that's inside. I was talking about the packets you get at the drive-up winow.

sFunn: Welcome! Thank you!

Jeff: LOL, yes... truvial pursuit. I haven't seen it in any other products either. Hopefully its scope will drastically increase soon so we can enjoy it before science learns about all the leprosy and toenail fungus.

MrCondescending: Better than sugar itself? Really?

Jen: Amen, sister!

Travis: Not necessarily. It would depend on how thick it was. I'm thinking a thickness of three feet would probably be enough to support the row of people-- though it might need to be more. It's a mile wide/long, though, so its dimensions will still look like a wafer. It's sad that I've given it this much thought. :)

whall said...

On the raft thing, you just said a mile wide, but declined to indicate width or depth. If you mean a raft that's a square mile, then we'd still need to know how tall it is.

You could fit a lot of people on this raft -- assuming each person stood up, taking four square feet (2x2), you could fit Almost 7 million people.

Of course, if they changed the ketchup packets to be bigger, we might need to change our calculations.

However, for the sake of the exercise, assume avg weight of 150lbs per person. We also could assume that out of 5280 feet along one edge and keeping our 2' side to side margi , we could only fit 2640 people along one edge.

That would average out to be 396,000 lbs sitting on the edge.

My guess is that it would not be enough to tip over the raft if it where a mile square.

But it sure would be fun to test it, especially with a bunch of people who decided a small amt of ketchup was ok to put into the packets.

Janna said...

Whall: Read my reply to Travis; I speculated that the raft would probably need to be about three feet thick, maybe more. Thank you for doing all those mathy contortions and calculations! :) Will it still be the same if half the people have taco sauce in their pockets instead?

MikeWJ at Too Many Mornings said...

A zillion packets equals about 1/4 cup of ketchup and costs the McDonald's Corp. about 10 cents. That's why they switched to individual packets--it saves them billions of dollars every year in operating expenses. They switched to paper cups from styrofoam cups years ago for similar reasons: They were tired of people mashing the strofoam cups together to form rafts, then floating out on the ocean and partying until they tipped over and filing class-action lawsuits against McDonald's for damages.

Janna said...

MikeWJ: Part of the reason I love their Sweet Tea so much is because it comes in a styrofoam cup, which keeps the tea cold. I've got about half my raft built already.

MikeWJ at Too Many Mornings said...

I know a good lawyer when you're ready for him. :)

Janna said...

MikeWJ: I hope he can swim.

MikeWJ at Too Many Mornings said...

I wasn't going to respond again because it's your blog, but you set me up so perfectly I can't help myself.

Reply: Sure he can swim! He's a lawyer and sharks swim great!

Thank you! I'll be here all week!

P.S. -- Janna, you have to help save me from humiliation. I started a contest on my blog this week, and nobody's responding. Why would they? I suck. Still, can you make something up and save me from looking even more idiotic than I normally look?

Janna said...

MikeWJ: As long as he doesn't take a bite out of my raft, things will be fine.
Just visited and left something for the contest, though I dunno if it was any good. :)