One supermarket visited by The Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

“I’ve been looking for it for two weeks,” said Cristina Ramos. “I was told that they had some here and now I’m in line.”

I guess now’s the time to start looking into that three shells thing?

Then Natto’s colleague put out a call for assistance from the FDNY.

Sources said dispatchers asked him to repeat what was going on — since they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

When firefighters arrived, “they didn’t go straight to helping him,” Giuong said. “They all gathered around and laughed at him. They took their time just crowding around. It seemed the officer was enjoying himself.”

Stories like this make the Post, and me, very giddy.

The Olympic Games are always proceded by a furious amount of building as host cities construct arenas, pools, ski jumps, Olympic villages, and anything else the games demand. While some of the buildings are repurposed after the athletes depart, others are left to rot.

I love destruction porn.

The most expensive beers in MLB can be found in Washington where Nationals fans have to pay at least $8.25 for a beer for the privilege of watching Bryce Harper. The Cleveland Indians and Arizona Diamondbacks have the cheapest beers ($4.00).

The chart they present is what you actually have to pay to buy a beer at the various ballparks. I took the data and massaged it a little bit to see who has the most expensive beer per pint. Turns out it’s the Boston Red Sox at nearly $10 a pint. $10!

Your eyes aren’t lying to you: we went there. MeUndies now truly offers the ultimate in convenience. That’s right, when you pick up this 365 pack, you now have a different pair of underwear for every single day of the year. We dare you.

What happens if it’s a leap year?

The new gender-neutral references, for example, include “journey-level plumber” instead of “journeyman plumber,” “handwriting” in place of “penmanship,” and “signal operator” for “signalman.”

[...]

Civil engineering terms such as “man hole” and “man lock,” also will not be changed because no common-sense substitutes could easily be found, Thiessen said.

I think Newspeak started out in a similar way.

So far it’s drawing rave reviews, with a 4.5 out of 5 rating on the Google Play store. One user who commented on the app’s website only regretted that it wasn’t released a little earlier: “If I would have had this app last year,” he wrote, “I probably wouldn’t have gone home with my cousin.”

“Probably”.

It’s amazing how much the change is from one stop to the next. Take the A train for example…look at the jump between Fulton and Chambers.

The NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship, also known as ”March Madness”, can be very exciting due to it’s single-elimination format, however, the way they play the last few minutes of close games mars an otherwise enjoyable experience.

I know it works once in a while, but that doesn’t make it fun to watch.

As the NCAA tournament got closer this year, I began to wonder just how long, on average, the last two minutes of a game actually takes to play, and if the closeness of the score matters. So, during the tournament, I got out my trusty stopwatch (last seen during Super Bowl XLIV) and timed the last two minutes of as many games as I could.

Thanks to the NCAA tournament app on my iPad, I was able to watch a lot of the second-round games played on Thursday and Friday that I normally would have missed due to work. Out of the 63 total games (I’m not counting the new first round of four “play-in” games), I was able to get data for 41 of them, which is just about two-thirds. One game went to overtime so I was able to get the last two minutes of regulation and overtime.

From viewing the games with an eye on the clock, I can tell you that the biggest time sink in close games is TV timeouts, followed by referees using instant replay to determine the correct time left on the clock and if someone’s foot was on the 3-point line, out of bounds, etc.

Results

The average time it took to play the the last two minutes of the games was 9:22.

If the point differential was 4 points or less (11 games), they took an average of 13:10. The maximum was 22:36; the minimum was 8:56.

If the point differential was between 5 and 9 points (10 games), they took an average of 13:32. The maximum was 18:19; the minimum was 8:40.

If the point differential was between 10 and 14 points (8 games), they took an average of 7:16. The maximum was 14:28; the minimum was 3:07.

If the point differential was between 15 and 19 points (7 games), they took an average of 4:50. The maximum was 6:58; the minimum was 2:35.

If the point differential was over 20 points (6 games), they took an average of 3:31. The maximum was 4:57; the minimum was 2:21.

The shortest final 2:00 was 2:21 during UCLA vs Minn in round 2, which was a 20 point blowout at the 2:00 mark.

The longest final 2:00 was 22:36 during Creighton vs. Cincinatti in round 2, which was a 2 point difference at the 2:00 mark.

 Raw Data

When the results were broken down, it emerged that Xbox players had been rated the highest by their partners, with 54 per cent of Xbox gamers being described as ‘good’ or above and 22 per cent being regarded as ‘excellent’.

I primarily play Xbox because the controller is more comfortable for my large hands. Just leaving that out there.

From October through January I researched, compared, tested, and made a “final decision” about 10 times before finally pulling the trigger and purchasing a new TV in late January. It was the most stressful purchase I’ve ever made in my life, and I hope I don’t have to purchase another new TV for at least 10 years.

Too Many Choices

There are so many different choices when it comes to HDTVs due to different sizes, technology, and features, and when each category has six or more possible options, whittling down the possible TVs becomes almost impossible.

Size? LED vs plasma? 240Hz vs 120Hz? Smart features vs no smart features? Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Visio, LG?

I made lists of the pros and cons of each, made charts to visualize which features were really important to me, heck, I even flipped a coin in some cases, but I was unable to reach a decision. The problem with so many choices is that one is not clearly better than the others, in fact, some choices are better in certain circumstances while the opposite choice is better in others, and both circumstances may apply to me depending on the day.

Size Matters

There are numerous recommendations of the optimal size of the HDTV you should get based on how far away you are when viewing it. The problem is that there isn’t just one size for eight feet away (my viewing distance). It all depends on what you’re using the TV for and the experience you want. I’ve seen optimal size ranges anywhere from 32″ (my old set that seemed small) to 80″ (!!!).

Thankfully, Best Buy uses 2′ x 2′ carpet tiles, so I was able to accurately stand eight feet away and compare the sizes. I probably spent about an hour in Best Buy, over two visits, watching the different size TVs, paying attention to whether my eyes picked up the whole TV or if they had to pan around. I decided that a 46″ TV was probably the best choice, as the 50″ was harder to view the entire screen without panning.

(Interesting note: while standing around in Best Buy, not one salesperson came up to me as asked if I needed help. Not sure if that’s because I looked like I knew more than they did, or if I smelled.)

Plasma vs. LED

Perhaps the biggest choice to be made is whether to get a plasma or LED screen. Plasma has deeper blacks, richer colors, and a wider viewing angle. However, plasma can suffer from “burn-in”, where portions of an image that don’t change for a long time can be burned in to the screen and be seen after changing the channel. While plasma does do things to combat this, knowing that I watch a lot of SportsCenter, with it’s black bar on the left side of the screen, a lot of sports with the score always in the same spot, and some video games with the health bar in the same spot, plasma took a hit.

On the other hand, LEDs backlighting may have issues except on the highest-end models (real backlighting vs edge lighting). LEDs may also be a little “blurrier”, especially on fast moving video like car races. LEDs now have 240Hz refresh rates to combat that.

Based on the above, and how I use my TV, I thought that LED would probably be better because I didn’t want burn-in to affect the picture quality in a few years — somewhat reminiscent of that black “smudge” that was occurring on my old TV.

Forced Decision

While I was leaning towards an LED TV, choosing the 46″ size actually clinched LED for me since no one makes a 46″ plasma. Plasmas really start at 50″, although Panasonic makes one 42″ model, but even if I really wanted plasma, it would be too small.

So, based on all of the above, it looked like a 46″ LED was the way to go for me. However, there was one issue with the current crop of TVs that I had to wrap my mind around and see if I could live with.

Reflecting

One of the ways the newer HDTVs deliver better colors is by using a glass or glass-like screen. Compared to my old TV, which uses a matte plastic type of screen, the colors really are much more vivid and “pop”. Matte screens tend to dull colors a bit. However, one big advantage of a matte screen is that there are almost no reflections from even bright, direct light sources, and any that do exist are diffused so you really can’t see them at all. Even though they use special coatings, glass screens are very reflective of any light sources in the room.

Out of all the 46″ LED TVs I was considering, only one had a matte screen, and it didn’t have some of the other features I wanted. So I found myself back at Best Buy looking at different TVs for their reflective properties. What I found was a little disturbing.

During bright scenes, you couldn’t really see any reflections at all. However, in dark scenes, you could clearly see not only lights, but everything that the light hit. I could clearly see me standing eight feet away, the sign behind me, etc.

After standing there for about 30 minutes, I began to realize something…if I watched the TV and looked for the reflections, I saw them easily, and they were very distracting. However, if I actually started watching what the TV was playing and not concentrating on the reflections, I stopped noticing them. Since almost nobody makes a matte screen anymore, I pretty much had to live with the reflective screen.

Decision Time

In mid to late January, I finally hunkered down, got all my research notes and reviews together and decided that I could either make a decision or just continue to research forever — paralysis by analysis.

I needed to whittle down the 20 possible models to 1. After going through my pros & cons list several times; after reading nothing but TV reviews for about a week; after waking up and realizing that I had been dreaming about TVs, I had what could best be described as a moment of clarity. I was trying to find the best possible TV compared to the others. What I forgot to consider was that even if I bought the worst possible new TV, it was still going to be seven years worth of technological advancements better then my old TV it was replacing. Even if I got a 32″ LED TV with a 60Hz refresh rate, it was still going to be better than my old TV.

Of course, I had that epiphany at the end of the process and not at the beginning. I had it after I had racked my brain and made my co-workers sick of my indecision. I had it after I had skipped meals because I was making myself sick worried that I would make the wrong decision.

Finally

I finally ordered a Samsung 46″ LED HDTV. My epiphany was right, it’s amazing. Getting to that point was horrible, though.

I joked with a friend that the only purchase more stressful would be an engagement ring. After thinking about it for a moment, I realized that my girlfriend would drop hints as to the cut, setting, and design, and all I would have to do is find something that satisfied the requirements. In fact, buying an engagement ring should be downright easy in comparison.

This just may be the greatest thing I have ever seen.

Yet even children worlds apart share similarities when it comes to the function their toys serve. Galimberti talks about meeting a six-year-old boy in Texas and a four-year-old girl in Malawi who both maintained their plastic dinosaurs would protect them from the dangers they believed waited for them at night – from kidnappers and poisonous animals respectively.

Do NOT mess with the kid from Ukraine.

Being 6’6″ (198 cm), the 2013 view is pretty much how I see every event these days. It’s worse for whoever is stuck behind me.

Update: The Washington Post’s Nick Kirkpatrick found that the two photos are not from similar events, and therefore, should not be considered a fair comparison:

But the top photo, which shows an audience with far fewer gadgets was taken during the funeral procession of Pope John Paul II — a very different mood and event type. There was no one addressing the crowd from the balcony, for example. So, the comparison isn’t quite accurate.