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I just learned of a little math fact today. A Mersenne number is a number that is one less than a power of two. (*see source 1)

2^n - 1

Examples:
1, 3, 7, 15, 31, 63, etc.

A prime number is a number that is only divisible by itself and the number one.

Examples:
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17… etc

By putting these two bad boys together we get the Mersenne Prime. A number that is one less than a power of two that is ALSO a prime number.

Examples:
1, 3, 7, 31, 127, 8191, etc.

These Mersenne numbers are very tricky to figure out. In fact, there are only 44 that have ever been discovered; the largest having over 9.8 million digits in the number (2^32,582,657 - 1). One cool thing about Mersenne Primes is that always is the case where two must be raised to the power of a prime number. That makes hunting Mersenne Primes a heck of a lot easier though still way too hard for Windows Calculator. Also cool is that the 44th Mersenne number is currently the largest prime number known. (*see source 2)

Anyway, the exciting news of the day is that the 45th Mersenne Prime number may have been discovered!!! Hot Diggidy! Get out your party pants!! If the number confirms in September we should have a Prime Party. This one will most certainly be more than 10 million digits long which means that the GIMPS folks may win the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s prize of $100,000. And if you’re feeling ambitious, try and grab the next prime number in the list to win $150,000 or $200,000!!!! (*see source 3)

A couple sources:
1. The fast, the easy, the wikipedia
2. GIMPS - with lots of history and fun facts.
3. The Electronic Frontier Organization

One of my favorite rock climbing routes in Connecticut is Thor’s Hammer. It’s up at East Peak in Meriden and reliably delivers chills and thrills at each ascent. I’ve talked of its majesty in the past. It’s just great in every way.

I hit up Thor’s hammer a few weekends ago with Pete and Ben. We got out there reasonably early, set up our rappel lines and then zipped down to try our luck. Other than some heavy heat, the day was successful.

As an added bonus, I got to do some ascending with Pete’s equipment as well. Ascending requires using special equipment to quickly ‘climb’ ropes. Here’s a picture of some of the equipment that hovered above me as I ascended.

The advantage of setting up an ascending line adjacent to the climbing route is that it allows us to get a unique perspective for taking climbing photographs. Pete has a beautiful Canon 10d camera, so it’s always worthwhile to spend some time setting equipment to help with photos.

We each climbed Thor’s Hammer twice. This route is unique in that it has two roofs that require either stretched lean backs or furious fist jams.

Here’s a picture of Pete working his way to the first roof.

Here’s Pete again working the second roof.

It was a great day and a gorgeous climb. I hope that I’ll be able to climb it a few more times before the season ends. I desperately want to lead the route.

Okay Team MikeDiDonato.com, time for a quick game.

Can you guess…

How many posts exist on MikeDiDonato.com?
How many comments exist on MikeDiDonato.com?

Every once in awhile I am totally blown away by math - this is definitely one of those moments.

Benford’s Law talks about numbers and how they appear in nature. He says that if you take a random collection of natural numbers, like… the number of leaves on a tree, the height of mountains, the population of foxes, mathematical constants, etc… and you look at the first digit of those numbers, the distribution will not be even.

The first digit means the following:

324524 has a first digit of 3
29 has a first digit of 2
152923840 has a leading digit of 1

So wait… Benford’s suggesting what now?!?

That if you choose random numbers from nature, the probability that the number starts with 1 is different than say… 9?

Yes. In fact, 1’s are a lot more probable than 9’s. there’s about a 30% chance that the number will be a 1 and only a 4% chance that it will be a 9. But why??

Well, basically the distribution of numbers in nature is logarithmic*, not sequential. Let’s look at an example, say… the population of foxes. Let’s suppose you had 1000 foxes. If the foxes started reproducing, it would take a lot longer for their population numbers to go from 1000 to 2000 than it would to go from 8000 to 9000.

Another fun test is mathematical constants. I looked up some Mathematical constants on Wikipedia from here. I jotted down the leading digit in Excel and plotted them here:

Wow! nearly Logarithmic! And with only 43 data points. CRAZY.

“Now wait a minute,” you might interject, “that’s all well and good for populations and math constants but earlier you said that this was also true for distances like the height of mountains… what if I changed the unit from feet to meters?”

well, actually nothing at all. The logarithmic scale still works regardless of the unit. Nature just seems to work Logarithmically.

Does it also work if we fall out of base ten? Heck yes. The actual equation is LOGb((x+1)/x) where b is your base, and x is the number of which you want to find the likelihood. So in base 10, Log (10/9) is about 4% while Log (2/1) is about 30%.

So how is this useful? Well, this phenomenon also appears in accounting. New software packages are incorporating Benford’s law to analyze financial statements looking for the frequency of leading digits. Because people tend to think that the probability of every number appearing is about equal, fraudulent numbers can become very apparent. These software packages help the authorities audit the right people. Neat huh?

A word of warning: while you can use this law for a lot of things, it’s not always as simple as it seems. The specific application might be framed as ‘naturally’ occurring but it may not be. Take, for example, the height of people. If you looked at the leading number of anyone’s height in feet, you’d probably get a ton of 5’s, a bunch of 6’s, and a handful of 4’s. But height follows a bell curve, so Benford’s law won’t work.

Oh man, math and nature are so crazy!

*for any non-math folks, logarithmic distributions look something like this (see source 2):
1—————2———3——-4—–5—-6—7–8–9

sources:
Source 1: Some argue it’s not a real source, others don’t care… it’sWikipedia!
Source 2: Not satisfied with Wikipedia? Try this excellent website.

While this video isn’t of as high a quality as the first, it’s still kind of entertaining. My project partners and I made this video to try and portray the Fatalist perspective. The audio isn’t very good because of the karaoke version of comfortably numb that we downloaded. Also… the second half of the clip isn’t well matched between audio and visual… and the video was recorded with the backlight on. But whatever. It’s still kind of funny.

Enjoy!

Comfortably Numb - Modified from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

I’m taking a class which requires a unique presentation of class concepts. My group put together a good collection of music videos with new lyrics.

This is “heard it through the grapevine” with modified lyrics to represent the ‘gossip’ style person in the office. Enjoy!

Heard it through the grapvine - modified. from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

Once again, work and school have me a bit strapped for time. Since I can’t devote the proper amount of effort to a good textual post, here’s some MSPaint.

As is often the case with random MSPaint pulled from my collection, I don’t remember the origin of many of these pictures. So we’ll just have to use our imagination.

Enjoy!

Paul Scott has been working on this Marionette. Each line is controlled by a little servo motor which kicks depending on how you use a little side program. This particular dance sequence is to Stayin’ Alive.

Dancing Marionette from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

I may have to see if I can get Paul to record another video showing the behind the scenes work. Watching the servos and looking at the software is equally as fun.

Great job Paul! It came out awesome!

On Friday night a bunch of us zipped out to Rhode Island to the Frosty Drew Observatory for some star gazing. I brought my equipment, a Celestron 8″ Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. I got there around 8:30 and talked to the observatory lady. She decided to close for the evening because of looming clouds. “Bah!” I said, hoping that the hour and a half drive wouldn’t be wasted.

Tom, Mykal, and Mika showed up to join in on the fun as well. Starting off, the only real thing that I could find was Jupiter. Now, Jupiter is awesome, but it’s very elementary. Once the observatory lady left, I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to hunt anything down worth seeing. A few other folks showed up and I let them use my telescope to check out the moon and Jupiter, but really I don’t know enough about the skies to find much else.

Enter Ernie.

Ernie was an older gentleman (68ish?) with a little cap and a buttoned up shirt. He came over and asked me about my equipment and my magnification (it gets about 80x magnification). It quickly became apparent that this guy knew what he was talking about. Soon, after a few of the stragglers disappeared and it was just the five of us, the sky started to clear and Ernie began telling us where to find stuff. First he led us to a handful of double stars. These are stars that either appear to be next to one another, or stars that actually rotate around one another. The easiest to find was in the second star in on the big dipper’s handle. But then Ernie led us to more, including the beautiful pair of Albireo in Cygnus. The two stars are gorgeous in color. One looks gold and the other blue. It was awesome.

He also got us to the ring nebula, which, was extremely faint but fun to find. After exploring what we could in the hazy sky, Mika took out her camera and we tried some astro-photography. Because of the difficulty in aligning the camera to the scope, we just tried to snap some easy shots first time around.

Jupiter. Check out the sweet bands of storms that you can see on its surface. Through the telescope you can also make out four of the moons… but it’s hard to get the exposure time just right enough so that it all comes through.

Moon! This one was taken with my moon filter, a handly little filter to protect your eyes on nights where the moon shines full.

Another of the moon, this one without the filter and with a lower exposure time.

Fun!

To create the perfect weekend juxtaposition, on Sunday afternoon after getting all riled up at Roller Derby, I went to watch Polo with a couple friends in Greenwich. It was really unique.

Polo in Greenwich and Roller Derby in Holyoke are pretty much complete polar opposites. On one side we have women with fishnets and tattoos bashing into one another, and on the other side we have men on horses striking a small ball with a long mallet. And if it’s not evident by the players themselves, it’s evident by the spectators.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’d never been to see anything like Polo before. Crystal happened to be going with some peers and, since you pay by the car load, it only made sense to fill it up. They had an extra seat, and I grabbed it.

Horses are awesome.

It was actually pretty intense. The horses were very very fast. And when the players raced by, going near 30 miles per hour, the ground thundered. It actually rumbled.

Polo fields are huge. You can fit nine football fields onto a polo field. So it’s a bit hard to get a feel of all the action. I think each team only has four players out on the field at a time. And they nail that ball like it’s going out of style. I was pretty impressed.

At ‘halftime’ they invite the crowds to come out onto the field to stomp divets in the grass. Here’s a picture of me putting a big chunk of grass back in its place.

Know your place grass. Know your place.

The polo match lasted a couple hours. We showed up a bit late, but still got to see plenty of horse riding action. It was a fun trip to wealthy-ville.

I dare say, Pete and Crystal, you look dashing. Just dashing.

Thanks for inviting me Pete&Crystal!!
(feel free to check out some of Pete’s photos here.)

Connecticut stormed into Holyoke, Massachusetts on Saturday to fiercely battle the Pioneer Vally Roller Derby (PVRD) teams. The Connecticut Roller Girls (CTRG) would face the Western Mass Destruction and CT’s men, the Death Quads, would face the Dirty Dozen. This particular bout was organized so that the men’s and women’s teams would alternate playing each period.

The men stepped up to the line first.

CT’s Johnny Holeshot (#30 in red&yellow) at the line against PVRD’s Dr. Spankenstein (#113v in green)
Photo by Dead End Allie

Right from the start, our Death Quads felt the heat and speed of Massachusetts’ jammers. Dr. Spankenstein, Jurasskick Park, and Davy Jones were the first three jammers for the Dirty Dozen. Their speed was absurd. Death Quads Johnny Holeshot, Cirkle Jerk, and A Boy named Rob, were doing whatever they could to keep up, but the team was still vastly overpowered by the speed and agility of the Dirty Dozen.

CT’s Jacques Strap works to try and catch up to Western Mass’s Jurasskick Park.
Photo by Dead End Allie

The Dirty Dozen were hitting hard and skating fast, and their points soared. When the buzzer blared, the men of Massachusetts had a powerful lead with a score of 47 to Connecticut’s 11.

The Roller Girls were up.

The Connecticut Roller Girls came out in new uniforms: Predominantly black outfits with purple helmets. C. Mya Rage (#86′d), Paula G. Imnaughty (#913), and Ramona Rotten (#1977) were the newest recruits skating (for the first time!) on Saturday for CTRG. As the team took their warm-up laps, the girls practiced whipping their teammates forward and putting on the pressure around the turns.

Black Cherry started the show for CTRG against Western Mass Destruction’s Nora Morse - a pairing that was repeated throughout the night.

Black Cherry and Nora Morse at the jammer starting line

Black Cherry pulled lead jammer status and started the team off with a great momentum. She was followed by Pam Terror, Violet Riot, Nelly Knuckles, Pearl Jammer, and Girl Fawkes all who helped pull Connecticut into a 10 to 2 lead half way early in the first period. Especially noteworthy was a clutch block by C. Mya Rage who barreled forward in the 5th jam to knock down a Pioneer Valley Roller Girl and clear the way for Pearl Jammer to sneak through the pack. The team was really skating well, but Western Mass Destruction wasn’t going to let this one come easy; PVRD’s Big Vinny’s Kid, Pixie Scabs, and Chickadee Struction, were fighting back - and they were fighting hard.

The match was intensely defensive. Check out this video showing just one moment of the defensive power. Brutal!

Roller Derby. CTRG vs. PRVD from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

Yes, the girls were hitting very hard Saturday night.

By the end of the first half, Western Mass Destruction had narrowed the gap in points to 4. The score stood at CTRG 20 - Mass Destruction 16.

Meanwhile… the men returned.

When we last left the Death Quads, they were struggling 36 points behind the home team in Holyoke. Sadly, the second half saw no mercy from the Pioneer Valley Team. They fought aggressively to keep the points rolling. Jurasskick Park, Davy Jones, and Dr. Spankenstein continued to wreak havoc on our CT heroes.

Dr. Spankenstein races towards Cirkle Jerk.
Photo by Dead End Allie

At one point Jurasskick Park was jamming against Cirkle Jerk. I have never seen such speed from a jammer as I did from #1993. Jurasskick Park soared around the ring weaving through the Death Quad blockers. While it was a bummer to see CT falling further behind, it was impressive to see the skating prowess of the Dirty Dozen.

As the men’s bout came to a close the score put the Dirty Dozen on top 123 to 35.

The Roller Girls’ Return

The girls came back and started right in where they had left off. But this time Western Mass Destruction’s Ballistic Miss L, Pittstop, and Nora Morse were ready. They skated hard, and despite the hits from Miz Con SepJen and Victoria Deck’em, they pulled off 10 quick points to steal the lead away from the CTRG. At this point, each team’s strategy became paramount. The teams were trading the lead back and forth. The blockers were fighting to control the front of the pack and the jammers were fighting to break through.

CT’s Pam Terror slows slightly to try and prevent MA’s Blood Bath and Beyond from hitting Black Cherry

At one point the CTRG were down nine. Girl Fawkes came up to face Pittstop as jammer. The whistle blew and the girls were off! Girl Fawkes broke through first and snagged lead jammer status. As she flew around the ring, she lapped Pittstop… but not before pulling off a sick tactical take down and knocking Pittstop to the floor. The hit gave Fawkes enough time to break through the pack again… pulling in nine points and tying the score.

There were only a few minutes left.

The girls signal one another to help make the team aware of advancing jammers.

The last few minutes were extremely intense. Unfortunately the Connecticut girls suffered a serious set back as jamming Nelly Knuckles was sent out on a penalty. This gave Western Mass Destruction a key chance to try and take the lead. They capitalized on the opportunity and grabbed a critical few points. As the time ticked down, all the while the crowd roaring with excitement, the CTRG fell behind 43 to 47.

It was a great night for roller derby. Great job to all the players!

Statistics!

Top Scoring Dudes

The Death Quads
10 - Circkle Jerk
9 — Johnny Holeshot
9 — A Boy Named Rob

The Dirty Dozen
42 - Jurasskick Park
38 - Davy Jones
27 - Dr. Spankenstein

Top Scoring Ladies

CTRG
15 - Black Cherry
11 - Girl Fawkes

Western Mass Destruction
14 - Nora Morse
12 - Kookie Kutteroff

What’s next?

I had an opportunity to chat with Pam Terror before the bout started up. Apparently the girls did really well at the East Coast Derby Extravaganza in Philadelphia last month. This particular bout was the last one for this season so they will be going on break for the duration of the summer, returning to the rink in the fall. Until then, feel free to check the CT roller girl website for additional information on upcoming events.

Cindy recently got her own condo out in Chicago. It’s hip and wild and she is, as one would expect, rather excited.

One of the first things that needed to happen, was a lock change. This is Cindy’s story.

I had a guy come over to change the locks. This is an important step in any new home ownership and I felt like I had it under control. The guy had a very distinct eastern european-dirty hands-creepy-locksmith-kinda look about him. Anyway, while he was changing the locks, he asked “where is your husband?” and i was so flustered by the question i didn’t know what to say… I think I managed a “what husband?”

and then he asked me out.

I replied “uhm you’re married” because he totally had a ring on.

“oh that, don’t worry about that, come to my apartment and you can see i am very alone”

He really said that! So Awkward! So when i was paying him, cash, he was filling out the form and he wrote my name and address and asked me for phone number. i gave it to him and he wrote it on the form thinking nothing of it… then realized, why would he need my number?

Why? to text me later that night saying “we have a date Friday!”

And i had a pile of boxes in my place of course, so i had offered him the boxes i had because he said he was moving so he texts me again last night to say “i forgot the boxes, can i stop by tomorrow?”

I really had no clue that I was giving him so many openings.
I thought i was better than that
I’m disappointed in myself

Also, it’s really creepy when you realize the guy stalking you was the very same man who changed the locks on your front door.

I’ll keep you posted if there are any new developments.

Mike D: Oh man, Lisa. I have the strangest craving for a big ice cream sundae right now.
Lisa in Accounting: You know, there’s ice cream and hot fudge upstairs.
Mike D: What?!?!?
Lisa: Yeah, go help yourself.

If you know me well, then you probably know that I’m not a huge fan of politics. I think it’s extremely important that we appreciate that there is no one answer, and rare is the case where someone is right or wrong. Republicans? They make a lot of great points. Democrats? Also a lot of great points.

Anyway while I might dislike politics, I love MSPaint. How is this even remotely related? Well, Sarah, a friend of MikeDiDonato.com, is a campaign manager for a Mr. Joel Haugen in Oregon. Joel Haugen is running for Congress and Sarah asked me if I’d be willing to whip up a little MSPaint version of Flat Stanley in the likeness of her candidate.

Clearly I rose to the challenge. Not so much because I believe in politics but because I believe in MSPaint. So, check out Joel’s website. Over there on the left hand side bar is a little download Flat Joel link. It’ll bring you to a page where you can download my picture of Joel Haugen. Neat huh?

Here’s a preview:

MSPaint. Helping shape the United States’ Congress.

A few weekends ago my family had a big pig roast to celebrate my sister’s PHD achievement. It was really fun and I realized this morning that I haven’t yet had an opportunity to post about it.

The pig guys, so named because they took care of the pig, showed up at 6am on the day of the roast to start to prepare. There was a giant pig, baked beans like you wouldn’t believe, potato salad, corn, roasted veggies, sausage and peppers, hot wings, salad, watermelon, cake, and the list goes on.

As for the pig? well, it was a little strange to see the beast roasting on a spear of sorts. But it came out pretty good. I had no idea how fatty pork meat was.

The group was fantastic. Theresa had invited a bunch of close friends from high school, graduate school, and family. It’s really fun just to get together with a big group of fun people.

The party went well into the night, probably not closing up until around midnight.

Well done Dr. Theresa! Yay!

Pete and I are finishing up our Carabiner analysis for our Mechanical Engineering studies. Check out this sweet video showing loading.

Carabiner FEA Analysis from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

Authored by Kurt

So now that its been a few months I think its safe to announce that my wife and I purchased our first home! I didn’t want to jinx it the first couple of months, but things seem to be moving right along.

We bought a 2 story Dutch Colonial in the lovely town of Randolph.

Our House

Feel free to send presents and or cards.

On Friday the thirteenth, three Connecticut roller girl teams entered the Roller Magic arena in Waterbury, each trying to exit as the sole champion. The regular season had come and gone leaving all three teams tied. The Elm City Bone Crushers, the Iron Angels, and the Widowmakers arrived to play each other in 30 minute mini bouts. At the end of the night, if a single team won both its bouts, she would go on as champion. If again, all teams tied, then the team with the greatest point differential would be deemed champion.

Let’s take a closer look at the three teams.

The Elm City Bone Crushers
ECBC, as their adoring fans refer to them, came into the 2008 season worn and beaten from their losses the previous year. But Doomcake (#13), their willful and powerful captain, wasn’t going to let history dictate this year’s success. After a heartbreaking loss to the Widowmakers early in the season, the team came together for a well-earned victory over the Iron Angels. Their roster* includes:

Doomcake (#13 captain)
Vixen Vega (#80085 asst. captain)
ChaCha LaRue (#xoxo)
Chelsea Grin (#T-4)
Ether Bunny (#ZZZ)
Jenghis Kahn (#1162)
Murderface Maully (#82)
Susan Bea Anarchy (#79)
Smith & Wendly (#357)
Syd Rock (#2)
Victoria Deck’em (#8)

The Iron Angels
The 2007 Connecticut Rollergirl reigning champions have a strong roster. Last year’s victory was testimony of the phenomenal power and leadership of the team’s captain and assistant captain: Tina Colada (#B-52) and Pearl Jammer (#GO) respectively**. The compassion and camaraderie of the Iron Angels is unparalleled. Their roster* includes:

Tina Colada (#B-52 captain)
Pearl Jammer (#GO asst. captain)
Girl Fawkes (#V)
Mount Saint Helen (#1980)
Nelly Nuckles (#2-KO)
Niki Nos Nitrous (#N20)
Pam Terror (#9)
Slaughterhouse Sadie (#70)
Violet Riot (#911)
Virginia Woolferine (#168)

The Widowmakers
These rollergirls have a passion and a professionalism that make them quite a menace in the ring. The Windowmakers have been a consistent contender in the Connecticut scene. The 2008 season began with a fantastic comeback for the Widowmakers as they pushed past the Bone Crushers in a tight 86 to 83 overtime victory. Under the power of their team’s seasoned captain Revengela (#1-2-3-4), the Widowmakers were out to try and take their first championship. Their roster* includes:

Revengela (#1-2-3-4 captain)
Black Cherry (#C-4 asst. captain)
Barbie Q (#2-3 team manager)
Eleanor Bruisevelt (#1933)
Luciana PULVERotti (#110R)
Milla Lowlife (#40)
Miz Con SepJen (#7)
Parker Poison (#As33)
Peekaboom! (#718)
Pepper Grind-Her (#10+)
Ruby Wreckingball (#TNT)
Slick Shoes (#85)

Huge crowds gathered to watch the Championship showdown.

The Championship

Bout 1

The first bout on Friday saw a competition for the ages between Elm City Bone Crushers and the Widowmakers. As the whistle blew, the girls took off in formation; the jammer’s driving forward with fiery intensity. Doomcake showed her prowess as she maneuvered through her opponents and quickly took the first lead jammer status. With it, the Bone Crushers drew first blood with a 5 point lead. Syd Rock came out next against Luciana PULVERotti. Despite Luciana’s aggressive drive, the ECBC defense kept her down and Syd Rock, with impressive maneuvering, sneaked through to win the jam. Right from the beginning, ECBC was showing some notable muscle and strategy on their skates. After ten jams, they had an impressive lead and were consistently scoring lead jamming status.

And then came the single most violent jam of the night. Syd Rock came out as the Bone Crusher jammer following a striking 5 point jam led by Chelsea Grin. Opposite her, at the starting line, was Eleanor Brusivelt, who earlier had led a successful jam under some remarkable defense work of her teammates. The whistle blew and the girls took off. As the jammers stormed around the track, they came face-to-face with a pack that held like a wall. Careening around the corner, the aggressive shoulders of the blockers dropped the jammers, and the trip up brought seven rollergirls tumbling to the ground. The girls got up and Syd promptly slammed into Milla, Ether Bunny clocked Eleanor Bruisevelt, and after getting up Eleanor bashed MurderFace Maully. More roller girls hit the floor in this one jam than in any jam I have seen to date. As testimony to the strength of these two teams amazing defensive players, at the end of this violent jam neither team had been able to successfully navigate through the pack to score any points.

The Bone Crushers were successful in their drive putting down the Widowmakers in a 50 to 17 victory.

Bout 2

After a short intermission where we were entertained by the Creepin Cadavers, the girls got right back into action. Since the Bone Crushers won the first round, they were able to relax until the third bout. This second bout put Iron Angels up against the Widowmakers. Tina Colada started at the line with Eleanor Bruisevelt. The teams were trading lead jamming status pretty consistently. Right away this looked like a bout of defense versus a bout of offense. The Widowmakers were pushing hard on Pearl Jammer, last year’s MVP, and were effectively holding her back. Parker Poison, Revengela, and Slick Shoes were in rare form consistently laying down the Iron Angels’ jammers. Angel Violet Riot seemed to be coming out a bit more as the Iron Angels tried to combat the Widowmakers’ hard-hitting defense, but to no avail. The points kept coming for the Widowmakers and they closed out with a 36 – 26 victory.

Bout 3
The Deciding Bout.

Despite losing the previous round, the Iron Angels were not out of the contest. If they could win against the Bone Crushers with a 21 point victory, they would take the championship.

The Bone Crushers, however, were truly intent on crushing their opponents. Doom, Syd, Ether, and Chelsea Grin traded the jammer position for the first eight jams over which they took every single lead jammer title. Pearl was the first to break the Bone Crushers run. Pearl, Pam, and Nelly Knuckles came up with a short rally, but were kept honest by the devastating drive of the ECBC. Jam after Jam the girls in red were pushing their points skyward. As the clock ticked the final seconds away, the Elm City Bone Crushers threw their hands in the air, they had defeated the Angels 42 to 11.

The girls gathered ringside to collect their trophy.

ECBC pose with their trophy.

Statistics!
Syd Rock and Doomcake were the highest scorings players of the evening. Syd with 47 points and Doom with 31. These women alone showed Connecticut that the Bone Crusher’s weren’t fooling around. Eleanor Bruisevelt and Luciana PULVERotti took home 18 and 11 points respectively for the Widowmakers. Pearl was the leading scorer for the Angels with 10.

Congratulations to all the Roller Girls for an amazing season and endlessly entertaining bouts! The next big event will have the travel team, the Stepford Sabotage, against a bunch of east coast teams at the EAST COAST EXTRAVAGANZA on June 21st in Philadelphia, PA and then against some of Western Massachusetts’ finest on July 12th in Holyoke, MA. For more information check out the CT Roller Girls Website.

*The rosters listed here were not the exact rosters for this particular bout.
** UPDATE: A Roller Girl kindly pointed out in the comments that last year’s Iron Angels captain and asst. captain were Nelly Knuckles and Dead End Allie. Tina Colada and Pearl are the captain and asst. captain for this season.

I took the government census data and downloaded it to excel. I was interested in the number of 25-35 year old people in each state of these United States as a percentage of the population of that state. Specifically, I wanted to see how Connecticut ranked. The results? Not very good for us Nutmeggers.

Take a look!

Here’s some info.

Minimum: MAINE 11.46%
Maximum: UTAH* 16.03%
Average: 13.22%
Standard Deviation: 1.03%

An interesting sampling:
Connecticut? 11.65%
Mass? 12.89%
Rhode Island? 12.39%
Oregon: 14.06%
Arizona: 14.58%
Texas: 14.78%
Washington: 14.00%
North Carolina: 13.78%
New York: 13.10%

*oh those mormans. They’re so crazy.

Gymnastics Caitlin asked me to whip up an MSPaint of a gymnast as the logo for her Gymnastics Facebook club. I’m pretty pleased with the result. Check it out.

We’ve been rocking the Witty Text for a few years now. What’s Witty Text you ask? It’s the little changing phrase under the MikeDiDonato.com logo up at the top right of the page. Every time you reload the page, it gives you a different phrase.

We have such gems as:

Soy un hombre del queso.
Recommended by 4 out of 5 adult film actresses.
Salt is the volume knob of flavor.
{IF _mikedidonato IS “on”} awesome=lots {ELSE} awesome=0 {/IF}
and
We waste water here. A lot of it.

Right now I have 40 rotating phrases (10 mikedidonato.com points if you can name them all!)

Typically this little witty text phrase is really appreciated by first time visitors and completely ignored by regular visitors. Well, I think it’s time to revamp the list with some surefire winners. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to post them in the comments. I’ll add the favorites to the list and take out some of the lamer ones that have been stagnating in mediocrity (like Curing boredom since 1981. that’s pretty much the pinnacle of ‘eh’)

The only rule is that the clever phrase should be less than 75 characters long. Otherwise we could get into formatting issues.

The Comments are Open!

Whoa! The shiny new Satin Uniform has arrived! Check it out!

Rock!

For the next installment in our interview series I decided to ask my mom a few questions. Enjoy!

MikeDiDonato.com: Hi Mom D. Thank you very much for being willing to be the next Interview. You’ve been my mom for nearly 27 years now, for four of those years I have been blogging here on MikeDiDonato.com. How would you describe being a mother of an active blogger?

Mom D: Well, Mike D., in the beginning, being the mother of an active blogger was a bit stressful. Though I felt that I had a pretty good handle on what the general feeling of the site would be, I was also aware that perhaps I was off the mark and that the blog would hold unknown horrors that I would cringe upon reading and that I would perhaps be praying that no one would stumble upon mikedidonato.com. I am thrilled to say that you and the people who participate in the blog have held a very high and entertaining standard - it no longer sends chills down my spine when someone says, “hey, I just read Mike’s website” and I no longer feel I have to hope that people I know don’t read it - in fact, I’ve actually proudly sent many people to the website!

MikeDiDonato.com: Few people here know much about you other than little Mom tidbits that may have popped up here or there. Can you tell us a little bit about your life, not as a mom, but as an art teacher and an assistant librarian?

Mom D: My art teacher days were a lot of fun and very interesting. Art teachers have a somewhat different relationship with students than a regular classroom teacher in that art tends to be fun, kids like it and enjoy coming to class - also, some of the academically challenged kids have lots of talent, which is a joy to see and it’s great to be a positive part of their day. In that way, working in a library is very similar. We are there to help and make life easier for the kids, so students choose to come to the library. The high school kids are excellent and can be a lot of fun (and they’re really funny at times, whether they know it or not!).

MikeDiDonato.com: How long have you been quilting? and can you tell us about your first quilting experience?

Mom D: When we moved to Stoneham in 1974, the town offered Adult Ed classes. One of the women I worked with at Wakefield High was teaching quilting, and there was heightened interest in traditional, “folk” arts and crafts because of the upcoming Bicentennial. Since I already had an interest in sewing, quilting seemed like something that would be fun and useful at the same time (got to keep the family warm!). Thus began the Quilting Experience - and it’s very easy to pick out the older quilts because the fabric is Oh-So-Seventies. I still enjoy quilting and have a couple of things going on at all times.

MikeDiDonato.com: I have a couple quilts of yours and I love ‘em. I know you’re always reading something, what’s on your bedstand these days?

Mom D: Right now I’m reading all of Vince Flynn’s books. He writes novels that deal with political intrigue, terrorist attacks that are thwarted at the last second by the fabulous Mitch Rapp (also known as Ironman), a former Marine, who is now working for the CIA, and other such gripping situations. Political novels normally are not of great interest to me, but one of the kids at the high school couldn’t read Flynn’s books fast enough, so I figured they were worth investigating - and they are real page-turners! There are commandos, rangers, SEALS, torture specialists, upstanding citizens/politicians, slimy citizens/politicians - all kinds of conspiracies. Very good reads. I do recommend The Time Traveler’s Wife for a very interesting and wonderful read. Also, Michael Chabon’s Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. His short stories are excellent, too, and I’m not a big short story fan. I like Michael Connelly’s books, Harlan Coben’s, Kellerman (Jonathan and Fay), Patricia Cornwell - and The Other Boleyn Sister (or Girl, I forget which) was really good, too. Oh, and A Prayer for Owen Meany is a MUST read. I could go on and on….

MikeDiDonato.com I can provide a second vote for The Time Traveler’s wife. It’s a winner. Do you have any fun memories from your childhood growing up with three little brothers?

Mom D: Christmas was always interesting, as the brothers could not wait until morning to find out what Santa had brought. One year, there were little corncob pipes (like Popeye pipes) that were in the Christmas stockings. When a tiny button was pushed under the the little “tobacco” part, a soft red glow was emitted. One of the boys used that to light his way as he sneaked downstairs, inspected all the gifts, and reported back what everyone received. The only surprise that year was on our parents’ faces as we came flying down at the appointed hour saying, “where’s my____” and “Can’t wait to play with your_____”. No more light sources were given in years to come.
One of the boys sold all of his Indian head penny collection and buffalo nickel collection to buy candy. Bet the candy man was happy with that sale!
And I believe at times matches were lit (glad the house didn’t burn down) and there were various and sundry war games going on at all times. Guns were very popular back then, be they squirt guns, cap guns, air rifles, you name it. Civil War games were popular. Ah, the old days….

MikeDiDonato.com: Do you think it’s harder or easier for parents now versus when you were raising us and when your parents were raising you?

Mom D: This is just my personal opinion: In the 50’s - 60’s, when I was growing up, I think that parents had an easier time in that their word was law, no discussion. At the same time, any deviation from the norm was hard for many parents to adjust to, and in the 60’s and 70’s, this became an issue for a lot of people. Plus, I don’t think that many parents really knew their children very well because in many families there was not an open exchange of ideas.

Perhaps on the rebound, many in our group of parents went the other way, with a very relaxed child rearing technique, so much so that some children had no boundaries and many parents were very afraid of damaging the child’s self-esteem to the point that everything was okay and all children were winners at everything (wasn’t this about the time that every child always got a prize for everything? Even the little kids didn’t really value a trophy when everyone received one). You’d know better than I how that plays out in the real world with your age group. Right now, I would think that it would be very difficult to parent because of all of the technology (cell phones, IMing, facebook, myspace, texting, chat rooms, videos, cable TV, etc.) which separates people from those who are actually near them and which can have pre-teen and high school students always feeling like they are missing something if they aren’t connected. Kind of like there may be a party going on somewhere and you might not be invited - a lot of angst going on. Not to mention the danger of forming relationships with people the young person knows only from online conversations. It’s got to be hard to keep materialism under control, and very difficult to have to leave kids with sitters in order to afford a mortgage on a reasonably good home. Ah, for the good ol’ days! I really think it’s harder today.

MikeDiDonato.com: What do you think was the biggest challenge in raising us?

Mom D: Trying not to impose my fears onto you all. Obviously, I was successful in that regard, as there is no way I would attempt many of the things you all do regularly. You’ll notice that once you all broke free of my shackles (which apparently just barely kept you under control…) you all went wild and continue to horrify and impress me.

MikeDiDonato.com: haha! I’m sorry that we horrify you, but it’s for the best. To end, do you have a favorite MikeDiDonato.com post?

Mom D: They have all been a lot of fun, but there was one long involved one with people adding to a story and it went on and on….what was that one? Seems to me that one was especially fun.

MikeDiDonato.com: hmm. I don’t know! Do any of the readers remember which one she’s referring to?

Thanks so much for taking my interview questions mom! You’re the best.

I’m sorry favorite shoes, thank you for your service, but it’s time we separated. Your soles carried me countless miles through every sort of adventure. Let it be known that you’ll never be replaced, its just that the ladies will never appreciate you the way that I do. It’s bittersweet parting company with you, but I think it’s safe to say we’ve had a good run.

Thank you favorite shoes.