Best and Worst State Quarters

Please refer to the diagrams here for the rest of this post. Thank you.

It seems as if the treasury will put anything on a coin if they think people will like it. What do they care if people like it? They are printing money, not memorabilia. Although, they have made about 3.8 billion dollars through the state quarter program. You would think that if you were designing a state quarter you would put some thought into it.

It seems like most states wants one of the following to appear on their quarter:
A) Image (15 states)
B) Historical Significance (11 states)
C) Landmark (9 states)
D) Person of Interest (10 states)

But you could also break it down like this:
A) States with a stupid bird (6)
B) States with a gay flower (6)
C) States with a fucking bison/cow/horse (8)
States with 2 of the previous 3: 4 (Kansas, Arkansas, South Carolina, Oklahoma)

3 states (North Dakota, Montana and Kansas) use the image of the Bison on their state quarters. Bison are practically extinct and almost no bison live in any of the states that use it on their coin. Wyoming whose state flag is pretty much just a bison, doesn't even use it. It shows my point that you should use something unique to your state.

State quarters are the one chance for a state to show everyone what it has to contribute to the nation. A good quarter represents your state through simplicity. It should be easy to tell what state it is from without it having to say so. Also, you should show what your state represents. That is the key to a good state quarter. Here are the best 4 and the worst 6. (There are more bad than good)


Best 4
4.
Wyoming
I like it because it is so simple and elegant. Just the outline of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. It shows the spirit of Wyoming without cluttering the coin with a bunch of flowers or birds. Its not like Wyoming has a whole lot of stuff going in anyways.

3.
Alaska
The rugged American outback. The last wilderness. A fucking bear catching a salmon with its mouth in a raging river. That is so boss.

2.
Texas
It's simple and shows just the state and the lone star over the capitol. I like that even though they could have put so much more on their quarter, they chose to leave it without anything else. It comes off as timeless.

1.
Illinois
This is the best state coin. It incorporates an image of the state, a landmark and a person of interest, while not including a bird, flower or animal. One one side it has the outline of a barn and silo which shows Illinois commitment to farming and agriculture. On the other side of the image of the state shows the outline of downtown Chicago and the large commercial side of the state. Inlaid in the outline of Illinois is an image of a young Abraham Lincoln. It makes good use of the space and shows everything that you should think of when you think of the Land of Lincoln.

Worst 6

6.
Utah
Its quarter depicts the golden spike and the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Your state chose the completion of a cross country mode of transportation that is barely still in use today. What next? Will Arizona show the completion of Route 66 in 1926? Its almost as dumb as Florida putting the space shuttle on their quarter. In 2 years the space shuttle will be retired, so they could have put an image of a Saturn 5, which is a much more badass spacecraft.

5.
New Hampshire
Your contribution to the nation appears to be a rock face that kind of looks like an old man. It might as well be a piece of burnt toast depicting Franklin Pierce. What? Your beloved rock crumbled to the ground in 2003? So your telling me that New Hampshire should be known for a cliff face that when viewed from the right angle looked slightly like a person, and was destroyed. Gotcha.

4.
Connecticut
Your state quarter appears to show a dead tree. I guess it is supposed to be an unusually large white oak tree. You might as well have shown Gustav Whitehead on your quarter. No one, your own residents included, has any fucking idea why there is a ugly tree on your state quarter.

3
Mississippi
What could possibly be worse than a tree with no leaves? A bunch of flowers. That's all that is on the Mississippi state coin. It must be because Magnolias only grow in Mississippi. That's why it's The Magnolia State. Wait. No? MAGNOLIAS GROW EVERYWHERE! Every state is the magnolia state. There is nothing special about magnolias and Mississippi. They might as well call themselves the dandelion state.

2.
Alabama
So what has your state contributed to society. A dead, deaf, dumb, blind chick. Yes, a woman who had the courage to learn to communicate with those around her. What a fucking accomplishment. Well, I'll salute you for having the courage to not just put a picture of the confederate flag. Bravo. Ohh and what else is on your coin. A MAGNOLIA. TAKE THAT YOU MISSISSIPPI FUCKHEADS.

1.
ohio
Keeping in line with being the worst state ever, ohio managed to thoroughly piss me off. You keep having this coy game where you keep claiming shit as your own. Why is there an Astronaut on you state quarter? What does ohio have to do with space? I can think of 49 states more deserving of an astronaut on their quarter. Did ohio invent the astronaut? People from Ohio who have walked on the moon: 1. People from Texas who have walked on the moon: 3. The other image on your quarter is a picture of the first recorded flight. THAT DIDN'T OCCUR IN YOUR STATE. You have an image you clearly stole from North Carolina and put it on your state quarter. I get it, "birthplace of aviation". The logic is as follows, without ohio there would be no Wright Brothers, and without the Wright Brothers there would be no airplanes, and without airplanes there would be no space program. Space exploration is more akin to rocketry than aviation so that honor would go to Massachusetts where early rocketry tests were performed. The wright brothers were not the only ones working on the airplane (see Connecticut and Gustav Whitehead above). BUT GET THIS: Wilbur Wright wasn't even born in ohio. HA! The birthplace of aviation belongs just as much to Indiana as it does to ohio. Your license plates should really read "Half of the birthplace of aviation" So that's it. Your states' claim to fame is that one of the two guys that eventually went on to make the first airplane was born in your state well as a few of the hundreds of people that have been in space. You my friend have the worst state coin ever.

Here is what the ohio state coin should look like:

Introduction to Brian's Guide to Colleges

In the last 4 weeks I have visited 4 universities in 4 states. All of them are unique and have ups and downs. After this post, I got the idea to start rating the girls at each school I visit. Better yet, I am going to devote part of this blog to give overall ratings the different colleges I visit. Usually when I visit a school I take time to walk around campus and get a feel for the school. I try to visit the union and see the stadium. So now when I go to different schools I am going to rate them based on how I feel about the following factors:

Campus layout:
This is one of the most important factors in a school. Most notably, does the campus have a good feel to it? Is the campus planned out in such a way that it is organized, yet not cramped or too spread out? How are the buildings, are they interesting and unique or do they just look like boring office buildings? Is the school close to a downtown, or is there stuff immediately off campus? These are questions that can be easily answered by a walk through the campus.

Student Population:
The people make the school. A great student population is key to a great school. What are the students like? Are the girls hot, and are the dudes total D-bags? How is the Fratmosphere?

Night Life: This is sometimes hard to tell based on a one or two night visit, because it kind of depends on how good of a time you have. But its easy to tell if a school has a great bar scene or lots of parties.

Food, Stadium, Bus System, Other:
How are the food courts and off campus food? Is the stadium big and intimidating? As a bus driver, I have to take a look at the bus system to determine whether it is up to par. Is there anything else that stuck out on campus?

College Humor already ranks the Colleges across the country on all the important measurable aspects. But these are the immeasurable ratings that are really important.

Michigan Baseball 4 The New York Mets 2 (Well 4)

Today we went to the Michigan Baseball game vs the New York Mets. We got to watch the Michigan almost beat a professional baseball team. The Mets played their starters for the first half of the game. There were a surprising amount of Michigan fans there but I think we were the only college aged ones. We were being loud enough that some people gave us their seats next to the dugout behind home plate. If you have never gotten the chance to belittle a professional for being struck out by a college kid, I would highly recommend it.

Michigan was up 4-2 with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth. But Michel Abreu hit a 2 run homer to tie it up. At the start of the tenth the Mets threw in the towel. So it's a win via technicality. I guess since it was a exhibition game they didn't go to extra innings. Ill count it as a win for Michigan.

Can't Get More American that That

Yesterday I was driving down I-75 in a Ford, windows down sunroof open, drinking a Coke, eating McDonalds double cheeseburgers and listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Bert's Cafe, that was my idea

Yesterday a coffee shop opened inside of the UGLi. It looks pretty cool. This is the only picture I could find, its from the Daily:

Its Mary Sue and Bert

Anyways, when I was a freshmen Daida forced us to design a coffee shop for the Ugli. Our design was way sweet and the library director said there would be a Coffee shop in the Ugli by May of 2006. Well it took an extra year and a half, but they finally put one in. I think it looks pretty nice, and will definitely make the library a better place to study, even though Expresso Royale is just down the street.

We spent an entire semester planning out a Ugli Coffee shop. Here is what our final design looked like:

This is what our team looked like:

Yes I am eating a picture of my own face. What of it?

Thats us in Paris. Thats what I spent most of my time freshmen year doing, shitty colleges. I even made one for our math homework team. Check out my mad Microsoft Paint Skillz.

Blogging from Iowa

I have 3 midterms and a final next week so I decided to go to Iowa this weekend with Mark and John. To understand why I go to Iowa so much read this. A few notes.

After a successful trip to Western last weekend, and now Iowa I must ask where are all the hot girls at Michigan? I mean people always say the girls at Western are half as smart and twice as likely to fellache you, but seriously. I can't walk to class at Michigan without tripping over a stumpy girl in rain boots with the face of a cabbage patch kid. Its cliche I know but its really true. I can't wait to see the girls at University of Florida in Gainesville when I go there next week. I've created a chart of the quality of girls at each of these schools.


Michigan is totally bimodal with max points at like 5 and 9. It's because most of the girls are fat and ugly but then there is the small percentage of girls that are really hot but at the same time very smart. Thats the bump around nine. Another thing I can't stand is being in bars at other colleges and seeing these really hot girls being picked up by complete garbage. At Michigan those guys would have absolutely no shot. Is it just me or do the girls at Michigan have super high standards? These are just general opinions, I'm sure there are hot and easy girls at Michigan but I don't like to pay the cover at Rick's, or wear pants.

Also, whenever I'm at a different school I feel the need to always wear Michigan apparel. For a 3 day trip I brought 4 Michigan Shirts. Some sort of need to constantly let people know that I don't go there and I can read. I think that would work as a pretty good pickup line at some of these bars. "Hey Baby, I can read."

People who don't go to Michigan don't have to study very much. I'm in the main computing room of the main library at a Big Ten school and its sparsely populated. I can guarantee that the fishbowl is packed with panicking kids right now. I know that its still college, but these kids don't spend all day at the library or hours upon hours working on homework assignments like I've seen kids at Michigan do.

Sometimes I wished I had gone to an easy school in a warm climate with loads of hot chicks. Oh yeah, and near a Sonic.

Scientology vs The Internet

If you only use the internet for Gmail and Facebook you are probably missing one of the largest internet uprising ever. Anonymous and Project Chanology are raging an all out war against the Church of Scientology, everything from DDOS attacks to actual protest outside Scientology headquarters. The number of people involved could be in the tens of thousands. I am rooting for the internet in this one.

Scientology is not - to say the least - a traditional religion. If you want to believe that aliens came to earth 75 million years ago aboard DC-8's and laid the groundwork for our civilization, go ahead. I wasn't here, maybe they did. I don't care if you believe that psychology is evil, whatever. But I think its dangerous that the "Church" of Scientology charges people money with false promises of making their life better. It certainly didn't make it better for Noah Lottick or Lisa McPherson. I think that to any reasonable person, they would see that the Church of Scientology is less of a church based to help people and more of a money making scheme.

I am impartial to peoples personal religious practices most of the time. The only time I take issue is when people try to force religion or use rhetoric to advance their view and when religions try to silence debate about their practices.

Scientology uses legal means to silence critics of their religion. They attempted to shut down a early internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology which was hosting a healthy debate about the practices and beliefs. They have sued numerous other critics was lawsuits that amount to nothing more that harassment. They have threatened action against Viacom using Tom Cruise as leverage against a South Park episode that made fun of their religion. It was the vary same episode that caused Issac Hayes to quit the show. Albeit 10 months later, and in my opinion at the urging of Scientologists. I guess it's fine to mock Christianity and Judaism, but once they turn to your religion then its over the line.

Its possible that this war could be waged for a long time. In addition to raising awareness about the danger of what in my mind is a cult, they will hopefully be able to challenge the Co$'s non profit standing. Anonymous's main goal is to have people decide for themselves their view, and to have both sides available, not taken offline because of lawsuits and bullying by the Church of Scientology.

The Bet

In elementary school there was this terribly funny joke that went like this:

A old lady had a house she called butt, and a cat she called crack. One day she couldn't find her cat so she called the police and they came to look for it. Afterwards they told her, "I've looked all over your butt and I can't find your crack!"

That Joke:Funny::Mark's basketball predictions:Realistic

Mark Assborn honestly believes that within the next two seasons Michigan Basketball will be a top 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. Since this has no chance of happening (1-9 in Big Ten play, 10th in the conference) I am willing to put my name on the line. Yep, you guessed it. If Michigan gets a top 4 seed, I will legally change my name to Dumpster Baby.

So I drafted up an email to myself using the site FutureMe.org which lets you send emails to yourself IN THE FUTURE! So at the end of February 2 years from now I will get an email reminding me of the bet.

I will do all the requisite name change stuff, get business cards printed up that say "Dumpster Baby" and a new drivers license, the whole shebang (whatever the fuck shebang means). I'm not to worried about it though. It's Michigan basketball.

Google save the queen?

Good news, the Ads have returned. I had to move them, and I lost my super upgraded template. Now I am back to making money. But Google wont pay me anyways because they need to confirm my address which might be a problem, because for some reason beyond me Google thinks that I am computing from the UK. All of my news results are about England and rugby. Every time I do a search all the results are .co.uk I am asked if I only want to search pages from the UK. The worst part is that I have no idea how to change it. They know that I am in eastern time zone and I have given them my address, why do they think that I'm from the UK?!?

When I search colour It doesn't even ask me "Did you mean color?"

This blows.

Brian Gets a Job

I started a new job on Friday, but I still drive the bus. I am now the official voice of Michigan Mens Tennis. I do the PA announcements, and not much else. Before the match I read the lineups and at intermission I read the winner of the superfan raffle. At the end of the match I read the score. I get paid $30 per game but only spend about 3 minutes doing actual work. The rest of the time I get to watch the games or do whatever I want. It's further away then the bus depot and I get paid about half as much per hour, but I like it. I was even invited to join the tennis team at Pizza House on Friday night. I also now understand tennis a little bit better, and get to support Michigan athletics. I've noticed two things about the game of tennis though:

1) It is the one sport where your performance only matters on the end result. If you lose a set in a tie-break or lose a set 6-0 it is still a loss and means the same exact thing. It's like if a baseball game were decided based on who won the most innings. You could give up 18 runs in the 1st, but as long as you score one more run than your opponent in every other inning you would win. It doesn't matter how much you score overall, it only matters that you score more in any given round. The only comparable sport would be a skins match in golf. It only matters who wins the hole. If you lose a hole by 4 strokes but then win the next two by one stroke your still up 2-1. It makes every part of the game really important.

2) Being a tennis referee is the hardest officiating job in sports. In most sports there are multiple officials and very few tough calls. But in tennis every call is really hard. You have to tell where a ball traveling 90 mph exactly landed. I was amazed at how anyone could call a ball in or out. Also, since it is a sport where the players get to make calls, sometimes players will make a call in their self interest. It is a gentleman's sport, but some players get a little upset when they think a call should go the other way. I've also noticed that it is a sport where in some cases they allow do-overs. If something is debated heavily the ref will have they play the point over again. I can't think of any other sport that has do-overs.

I really like this job, and so for I have gotten free pizza and a free T-shirt. Although sometimes it is a bitch to get there, I think this is one of the better campus jobs.