Last weekend I read the book 1984 for the first time. The week before I watched a good movie about peak oil: The end of Suburbia. That combo's about enough to make you want to run for the hills, I feel like i'm going a little bit crazy.

Looks like I was right all along, not only are are all those loose chains on the track scary, scary, danger will robinson, they're also not fast: Research from a real university

The second factor that affected efficiency was tension in the chain. The higher the chain tension, Spicer says, the higher the efficiency score. "This is actually not in the direction you'd expect, based simply on friction," he says. "It's not clear to us at this time why this occurs."

So I'm back at the muffin study reading the Star Trib. and I come across this article about a new reality tv show. i figure it sounds so retarded i ought to read it. i found this little gem inside:

Understand that Muncie is a Rust Belt city that has suffered a lot of painful economic reality in the past 30 years. So the city's grasp for the proverbial 15 minutes of network TV fame -- and on a reality show -- has some worried that when the video editors separate the recorded wheat from the chaff, the chaff will get aired and the people of Muncie will look like idiots.

"They got too damn many reality shows on TV already. Besides, this isn't reality," said a grumpy Chet Skaggs, who was selling sweatshirts in a gravel parking lot next to a liquor store on the city's North Side.

"They just brought a bunch of dummies in from California. ... I think this is crazy," Skaggs added, giving voice to the more vociferous viewpoint in Muncie.

If that doesn't just paint a picture I don't know what does.