Thursday, March 31, 2005

funny ne?

Today wasn't too bad. Class went by rather quick, and Dr.Yang gave us a fair amount of help on the homework that is due next Thursday. After class I ate lunch with Jenette, Chris and Aaron at Panera. Then teaching went by without a hitch. Now i am basking in the warm glow of not having homework to do.

Here is a joke i randomly thought of a couple days ago while in the shower:
One guy talking to another (I guess on the Starship Enterprise): "Hey did you talk to the Binar? He has a couple of things to say to you."

A national sales tax

George Will (article)


His bill would abolish the IRS and the many billions of tax forms it sends out and receives. He would erase the federal income tax system -- personal and corporate income taxes, the regressive payroll tax and self-employment tax, capital gains, gift and estate taxes, the alternative minimum tax and the earned income tax credit -- and replace all that with a 23 percent national sales tax on personal consumption.


I am all for a national sales tax. I think that it would be the fairest way for the government to fund itself. A national sales tax would even be a better source of revenue than a usage tax (such as tolls on the highway).
What do you think?

List of Schiavo Donors To Be Sold

Yahoo! News (article)


Terri Schiavo's parents have agreed to sell their list of supporters [physical and email addys] to a direct-mailing firm, Local 6 News reported.


Are you surprised? I am not. Her parents kept her on life support even though she didn't want it. Clearly they are more concerned about themselves than other people, so it comes to no surprise to me that they would screw the people that supported them. I would be VERY pissed if I was a donor.

Nitendo Rex

G4 (vid)

This is a video from the Screen Savers... i mean Attack of the Show... whatever.
Anyways, they make a really big NES controller. When they actually start playing the game it is very funny. It is the hardest i have laughed while watching something on the computer for a while.

The Cuban Revolution

Wired (article)

More on Mark Cuban; this time how he is making a better movie theater.


Moviegoers, for their part, would be treated to a future that promises no more out-of-focus projection, out-of-order reels, or scratchy footage on heavily played film. Even more exciting to Cuban is the broader range of content that digital systems make possible: Beyond movies, theaters could offer live, hi-res broadcasts of sports events, Broadway plays, fashion shows, and multiplayer electronic games.


Ok, i changed my mind: If i could have dinner with one person it would be Mark Cuban. He knows what’s going on in the real world and can see how to make money out of it.

Site Update

I added Aaron's new blogger blog, and removed the not updated blog section, since the only blog left out of that group was Lyndo's. I really have no hope for her ever updating that again... So Chris and Jenette, if she does update it, let me know, and i will repost the link to her blog.

Olympics over-rated? Nah.

Yahoo! Sports - MLS (article)

One of the topics that i argued last night was that the Olympics are not over-rated. One of the reasons that i said that they were not is because of the huge benefit they have for the city that hosts them. Then this morning, while on the way for getting read for class, I read this story about the 10th season of Major League Soccer, and the two new expansion teams, the Deportivo Chivas and Real Salt Lake.


Playing host to the 2002 Olympic Winter Games also was a big factor in the decision to expand into Salt Lake City.
"Salt Lake's success on the international stage with the Olympics was part of what went into making this decision," principal owner Dave Checketts said. "But we fought long and hard to bring this team to Utah."


So, in conclusion, you can see that the Olympics are not over-rated. They are the biggest thing that can happen to a city, and have replaced the Worlds Fair as the best way to showcase large cities to the rest of the world.

Pre-Breakfast warm-up

OK, ok, ok, *today* is the last day of March. And what a fine day it is going to be... well i don't know that for sure, but you should have high hopes for any day, right?
Anyways, game night went pretty good last night. We had sausage and onion pizza, BLT salad and rhubarb-strawberry crisp. We played the game argue. Argue is a game where two people have a structured argument over some topic, like, are the Olympics overrated or which TV show is better, Rosanne or Home Improvement, then everyone else votes on who they thought argued their side better. It turned out to be a pretty fun game, although it does take a couple of turns for you to get in the 'mood' to argue. So if you want a good cheapish game, that prob. no one else has, pick up argue from its website (I don't think they sell it in stores).
Now on to the wonderful land of oatmeal and tea.

Side note: apparently cheapish is a word, cause spell-check doesnt have a problem with it... that or I have already added it to the dictionary...

Wednesday, March 30, 2005


Rebounds (game)

This is a quick game where you try to make the largest chain reaction possible, my best so far is 35.

HOW-TO: Get RSS feeds on your PSP

Engadget (blargticle)


This how-to serves a few functions: to piggy-back off the excellent work already done by roto to sniff out and untether the browser feature inside the PlayStation Portable’s Wipeout Pure game, to serve as a step-by-step graphical walk-through for PSP owners who are unfamiliar with dabbling in the ways of DNS settings, and to provide another portal DNS server option for PSP users who don’t have need or desire to set up their own DNS.


Now this is the kind of hacking that needs to get done so that i will buy a PSP. I wish they would have just shipped it with a browser preinstalled and ready to surf the internet...

??:cube WIRED (flash)

This is a crazy flash story where you have to click on the characters to have them continue on the storyline, it is pretty interesting.

Winds of change

ESPN.com (article)


5. Paint the helmets
I want hockey helmets to look cool, to be the topper of these world-class athletes who train so hard and play so hard. I want helmets like Michigan's hockey helmet, or the ones Ohio State wore against Michigan. Bold paint jobs and logos. The hockey helmet should join the ranks of cool memorabilia items and not just a smelly piece of equipment to cover Tie Domi's huge noggin'.


This article is a list of ideas that John Buccigross has that he thinks will make the NHL a better sport. This is now my new official plan for what the NHL should do. All of the ideas that he presents are good, and implementing any of them would improve the game greatly.
One thing that i would change with the NHL is the length of the season. Since more than half the teams get into the playoffs, each team is trying just to not suck too much. It doesn't take 80 or so games to find out who doesn't suck. Let's knock the regular season down to 60 or less games.
Also, i am now in favor of a shoot-out to decide regular season games. If we are going to alter the overtime from regular play with four on four, let’s just go all the way with having a shootout if the game is still tied after overtime.
Oh yeah and do away with all the standings crap from last year. Have your record be wins-losses, nothing more. Even i didn't know what the Avs standing was last year due to the wins-losses-overtime losses-burritos ate record system the NHL had, and i am a hockey fan.
One more thing, make a national hockey night (that is always on the same night), because it is hard to catch the games if you don't keep up with the schedules.
If the NHL ever gets around to caring enough to start play again, it will have one shot at saving the game, lets make the one shot it has good, and repackage it in a way where people actually want to see NHL games.
If it doesn't work i guess we can always hope the NLL steps up...

Avalanche to kiss Hershey affiliate goodbye

ESPN.com (article)

As first mentioned by Amber, The Avs are gonna cut ties with the Hershey Bears. They say that one possibility is they will affiliate with the CHL Colorado Eagles. If they do it sounds like the Eagles might jump up to the AHL.

Star Wars Fan Film Awards

AtomFilms (site)

Here are the films up for the 2005 Star Wars Fan Film Awards. They are all pretty good.

Get my sailing hat ready!

Ah, the last day in March. Man has this month gone by fast;I guess spring break helped in that since. On the agenda for today: Class, a meeting with a student, pick up some tax stuff, and sail around the world. Or was that tax stuff and play on the computer? I get those two mixed up alot.

Penguin Calls (flash)

Ah-ha! i found the first one!

So funny, 'specially his mom. I think i will hire a guy to do this for all my messages that i get, then i will look forward to my missed calls... heck i would just leave calls for myself then. ^_^

Penguin Calls (Flash)

If you need some funny in your life try this. It's bound to funny-fy you.

Also, now that i paid for 5clicks, I'm gonna get my moneys worth out of it...

Also, i have a quest, to find Penguin Calls number 1.

Also, why am i not tired?

Story of a Bear (flash)

This is a good flash about a little bear, if you watch it, watch it all, the ending is good. (The ending of the animation that is... the credits are kinda anti-climatic :) )

This was good enough to make me buy 5clicks, cause my trial ran out.
(But 5clicks is a good program, so they should get some money anyways.)

enjoy

Tuesday, March 29, 2005


Nettymus' Blog


-1 WS/ -1 BS Possiblity of a handwound. I was attacked by a Pitslave with a cheese slicer attachment for his hand on the 25th.


Oh that is funny stuff. Jenette sliced her finger pretty bad on the new cheese slicer when she was cleaning it. Which isn’t funny, but the reference to Necromunda is... and well thinking about a pitslave with a cheese slicer for an arm... ^_^

So at what point is it stealing?

Just got back from getting game night food supplies from Dillions. One thing that was surprising was the price for rhubarb. It was 3.99 a pound. But we needed it so we got a littleover one pound. When we checked out the girl there looked like she had no idea what the heck it was, and after flipping through the produce charts for a bit she gave up and rung it up as celery, $1.37 total. I was gonna correct her but i figured it wasn't really my fault she didn't ask what it was. Well, and lately we have basically been giving dillions produce money because we buy stuff and then throw it away a week later cause we forgot about it. Oh well, the dessert for tomorrow night just got $4 cheaper to make. :)

BW3 report: Either Eddie or Amber won the mini-six, and Amber won the showdown (400th or so in the nation)... I was first in the nation until the final question, that i got wrong, lost half my points, and finished 14th. Huzzah!

Court conflicted over file-swapping

SCOTUSblog (blargticle)


reyer wondered whether a lawyer for a developer -- for example, the inventor of the iPod -- could assure his client that he could continue to develop new products without fear of being held liable for the illegal uses to which the products might be used by some. Verrilli tried to provide assurances.

Scalia wondered aloud "how much time you get [as a designer] to bring up the lawful use so it outweighs the unlawful use," and thus copyright liability is averted. Verrilli said inventors would not have "absolute certainty" that they could avoid liability.



Well the hearing has been heard, now we just have to wait until late spring for a ruling. From reading this post about what went on during the hearing it looks like MGM and co. don't realize how much stuff they are trying to make illegal.

Some fun trivia; what was the first thing that the music industry tried to ban? give up? It’s the music destroying invention of player pianos.
These guys are (and always have been) retards.

Koran scholar: US will cease to exist in 2007

Jerusalem Post (article)


A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.

The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia.


Bible code meets the Koran, but with an improvement that the Bible Code guys will not do: make a prediction. Well, if it does happen it'll be nice to be near the ocean for once.

Also, this is another reason why science and religion should not get intertwined with each other...

Halo Meets Napoleon Dynamite

MilkandCookies (vid)

Halo + Napoleon Dynamite = Funny

Monday, March 28, 2005


The game is afoot once again. From ambers comment on the origianl Ztar2 post:

Since the Yahoo Tech Buzz game got hacked... I've had to do SOMETHING... and with a little web magic, i've turned the game site's bad programming back into full size again (if you ever play it, change the extension .html to .swf).. and behold. I'm tired of this stupid game (but will probably play it for a few more weeks, because I'm odd like that.)

With it she includes a screen capture where she has scored 170,940 to beat my old high score of 170,855.

so here is a link to the game that is full screen for firefox: Ztar2 (thanks for that fix Amber!)

ok on to concour the new high score!

Cheap screen printing tutorial

craftgrrl (blargticle)

List of things to do this summer:
1) make a bunch of my own screen printed t-shirts this way.
2) chill the most.

Let the truth be told…MGM vs Grokster

Mark Cuban (blargticle)


If Grokster loses, technological innovation might not die, but it will have such a significant price tag associated with it, it will be the domain of the big corporations only.

It wont be a good day when high school entrepreneurs have to get a fairness opinion from a technology oriented law firm to confirm that big music or movie studios wont sue you because they can come up with an angle that makes a judge believe the technology might impact the music business. It will be a sad day when American corporations start to hold their US digital innovations and inventions overseas to protect them from the RIAA, moving important jobs overseas with them.

Thats what is ahead of us if Grokster loses. Thats what happens if the RIAA is able to convince the Supreme Court of the USA that rather than the truth, which is , Software doesnt steal content, people steal content, they convince them that if it can impact the music business, it should be outlawed because somehow it will. It doesnt matter that the RIAA has been wrong about innovations and the perceived threat to their industry, EVERY SINGLE TIME. It just matters that they can spend more then everyone else on lawyers. Thats not the way it should be. So , the real reason of this blog. To let everyone know that the EFF and others came to me and asked if I would finance the legal effort against MGM. I said yes. I would provide them the money they need. So now the truth has been told. This isnt the big content companies against the technology companies. This is the big content companies, against me. Mark Cuban and my little content company. Its about our ability to use future innovations to compete vs their ability to use the courts to shut down our ability to compete. its that simple.


Man this guy is the best millionaire EVER! Maybe because he made his money himself, and not just in one big shot, but has built up the money over time. A freakin' genius.

Look for my other raves about him here.

The revenge of Sapir-Whorf

Copyfight (blargticle)


In addition to a lack of negative effects, the study argues, there is evidence for a positive correlation between sharing music and purchasing more new music.


Very true. Back about a year ago i was very into anime. But then came the University high-speed internet and the end of my being able to download fan-subbed animes. And guess what, my interest in anime has almost dropped to zero. Same thing has happened with music, back in the day i was up to date with music, and i could go to a record store and find many CDs that i wanted, now there are hardly any i want, mainly because I have no idea what anybody new sounds like. As a result i have not went to a record store to buy a new CD since John Mayer... which (ironically) i had grown to love because I downloaded all of his music.

free stuff generates interest generates money.

MGM v. Grokster

EFF (article)


Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday! Come watch MGM v Grokster, the fate of the match will determine the fate of all innovation. MGM claims Grokster should be responsible for copyright infringement because they took no measure to prevent it in their program. Grokster claims that the users are to blame for the copyright infringement, not them. Who is gonna win? All eyes are set on the arena. Two ideas go in, one fate of innovation comes out.
Why do i say that? Because if MGM wins, P2P programs are basically illegal since they can trade copyrighted material, messaging would be illegal, digital cameras are illegal, other camera are illegal, computers are illegal, phones illegal, photocopiers definitely illegal, pencils illegal. Because in all of their designs they do not take steps to stop copyright infringement.

Really, if Grokster loses we are gonna live in a copyright swamp for years to come, and no company would dare to make anything new because they would be afraid to be sued. (maybe not that extreme, but let me tell you it will not be fun.)

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday!

eBay sales is taxable revenue

Lifehacker (blargticle)


If you’re using eBay to clean out your closet in an online garage sale, claiming the money you get paid for sales on eBay isn’t necessary. But if you’re running a small business which depends on eBay for profit, your sales revenue is taxable.


Good news, no really. When i first heard this, they said that all sales on eBay would be taxed. But instead it is just small businesses that use it to sell their stuff. Which makes sense.

Mental note: Stop getting information from the TV and radio.

Good Hockey Goal

Putfile (vid)

If ya have a second check out this goal, I think i'll try it tonight at practice. ^_^

Back at em.

Today has been a good day to get back to school on. I have had a pretty good amount of stuff to do, which meant that i didn't just mess around while in my office. Actually, i didn't even get all of my work done, but that is ok, because i have a couple hours tomorrow in the morning to finish it up. But, I have finallymade it home for the day, and i am fixing some pizza (duh duh duhnnnn!) for lunch (at 4.20...). Soon i will be off to hockey, then home to eat dinner and take a shower, and that will be my Monday.

mmm...pizza is ready...

I noticed this over at Newgen's blog; if Sunday was the 26th and Friday was the 25th, what was the date for Saturday?
I think Blogger messed up.

Sunday, March 27, 2005


Easter egg hunt action shot!

Jerry, by far, collected the most eggs. I, by far, collected the most pictures of people collecting eggs.

I had forgot to mention that jerry’s mom and step dad, Stephen (sp?), came to dinner as well.


We had a good time. ^_^


EDIT: No, the person with the rabbit ears is not Jerry's mom, that is Jerry. (That should clear things up :) )

My detour is better than your detour.

Today was a celebration of Easter for the ages... well not the ages... maybe age or ag...
Anyways;

Today we (nicole and i) headed on over the BizarroKansas (Wichita) to go have Easter lunch/dinner at Jayme's house. Besides a 30minute detour the drive down was fine. When we got there the food was cooking, so nicole, maria, nicole's mom, jerry, and i went outto the mall to find a gift for tommy (maria's date to the prom). Unfortunately,the mall was closed, but Sears was still open so i looked at electronics, while the rest of the crew looked at clothes, shoes, and leggings or whatever girls look at that takes forever...
After Sears we headed back to Jayme's and ate dinner. We had ham, sweet potatoes, and other stuff, all of which was good. After the food got digested a bit we had an Easter egg hunt, then came in for dessert. Soon after we got done eating the apple pie, cheese cake, and pumpkin pie nicole's mom and maria left to go back to garden. We soon followed but we left in the mahattan direction. The ride back was normal, 'cept i made my own detour, which saved us about 20 minutes. And i bet you can guess where i am now...

pics of the day soon to follow.

PlayStation Sales Halted?

Slashdot (article)


According to Japan Today, the U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, has ordered Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and its U.S. unit to pay $90.7 million in damages to Immersion Corp. for patent infringement over controllers used with PlayStation game consoles. In the ruling handed down Thursday, the federal court also ordered Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Entertainment America Inc. to stop selling the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 game consoles using Dualshock controllers as well as more than 40 game software products.


ummm... thats not good...

Image Stitching Software

PanaVue (site)

This is where i got the program to make the panoramas. Pretty cool stuff, if they don't eat your computer (sorry Amber). Anyways, if you like playing with pics this is a good program to download. (it's free as long as you don't mind their logo all over the place...)

Panorama Try One

I can't get a movie poster... so i had to gank one...
and my blending is not the best, and it takes a bit to load... but in any case, here is a panorama of Chris and Jenette's apt.

Edit: Ok that didn't work, but never fear because i posted it on putfile.

Nicole cut my hair today (my annual haircut), and as Michelle requested, here is a pic of it. That is one snappy haircut if I do say so myself.

After the A of the B’s we went over the Jentte and Chris’ for some birthday cake.

As you can see, while there Amber used her mind control powers to get Aaron to use his Jedi powers to steal my cake... in the end it failed. (Chris ate it ^_^ )

Saturday, March 26, 2005


For Chris’ B-day we went to Applebee’s. We hung around the place for awhile, and then we got chris’ bday cake to go, since our server forgot about it. ‘Twas fine though. Jenette got him a Lizardman Priest thingy for his Lizardman army, and some Homestar Runner patches as well. Very good gifts indeed.

The people in attendance were: Nicole, me, Amber, Aaron, Chris and Jenette. What a fine entourage.

Capitol bill aims to control leftist profs

The Independent Florida Alligator(article)


According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.


Awesome, just awesome. Next lets work on a bill to let me sue Chipotle for not serving pizza.

i mean, common guys, college is not a right. it is something that you choose to attend, if a prof is saying things you don't believe you don't have to attend his class, it is an option. If you can sue for attending something that you don't have to, and then hearing something you don't believe in, we might as well just stop college all together.

Stop being such freaking babies crapfaces!

More updates about this blog

I removed the Amazon pay thingie, because no one found my information valuableenough to give me a dollar :( . Just kidding, i knew no one would give me money, thats why i kept my day job.
Also, since i couldn't sleep last night, i worked for hours (literally) and finally got the top picture bar changed, the image is from when we went to the T'Rants game a couple of days ago. I am very pleased with the way it turned out, itjust took forever to do. But most of that time was trial and error and not actual processestime, so the next time i want to change it, it will take much less time (like around 30min).

Other than that, all i have done today is get my hair cut. And there are rumblings of plans for Chris B-Day, so well see what comes of that.

This is the futon table that my dad got me for my birthday, even though it is not my birthday yet. It pivots around, which it can’t do at the moment due to the painting table, so that you can use it to write or eat on, or you can use it to set drinks on. Let me tell you, this will make my futon experiences X10 better. Nicole has already used it, and the reviews have been all good.
Yea presents!

(not pictured)

The rest of the time between Anti-Grav and now has gone fine.
Yesterday we ate salmon, cheese and olives over at Jenette and chris' while we watched Finding Neverland. The movie is very good, I give it an A on my list.
Today we ate lunch at So Long, then Nicole, my dad and I, looked for B-Day presents for chris at some shops around town, most cooly was Humble Abode (which is down by Radio Shack fer all ya that live in Manhappiness). The store has a very good selection of clocks, lights and seating, all of it is priced relatively well. My dad got me a futon table for my B-day from the store. (More about the futon table later). We ended up going to Home Depot and bought some track lighting for Chris for his birthday (I didn't my dad did). After the hunt we all (us plus jenette, chris, and michelle) headed on over to ye old Cold Stone for some ice cream and to give presents. After Cold Stone Gary and Michelle left, and i have been working on catching myself up with the world.

Before we left Lawrence we stopped by Newgen’s again and played some Anti-Grav. Here is Chris doing some crazy, crazy, things in the name of doing a flip in the game.


The next day while walking around Mass. Street we walked by the Granada. They had posted a flyer for the Your Name In Lights show.
It looks like I will not be able to make this show, but my sources tell me that they will be in Manhappenin’ the 12th of April.

While Michelle was Katamari-ing; Nicole (green), Newgen (red), and I (black) played Risk. This is a picture Nicole took when she captured North America and Europe. Shortly thereafter I crushed her, which was my mission, and won the game.
It was impressive though that she had both continents at the same time...

On Tuesday night up at Newgen’s we played some PS2. One game of note that we played is Katamari Damacy. Here we can see Michelle being hypnotized by the craziness of it all. If you have not played this game yet, I would suggest you stop whatever useful thing you are doing and buy it, your brain won’t know what hit it.

The next night (Tuesday) we all went over to BW3 for some trivia before Nicole and I headed up to Lawrence. You can guess which one is me and which one is my dad. ^_^

Here is a selection of pics from my spring break.

The second day Gary and Michelle were here we ate lunch at Panera. Here is Michelle looking rather spiffy in her new T’Rants third jersey that we (Nicole and i) got her for her B-Day.

NHL cancels draft

NHL.com News (article)

Oh, Matt beat me to it. (see what happens when i spend time with family instead of in front of the computer. ^_^ )

Anyways this is not a good sign for the NHL, in fact it almost gives a green light to the new WHA.
...The saga continues to unfold.

(I am really starting to think that our massive splurge on NHL hockey jerseys around xmas time was a good thing...)

Update: After looking around at WHA's website it looks like they can give the NHL a good run for it's money. If you have doubts check out the list of players who have signed to play an upcoming WHA tournament.

The Coming War on Blogs

Tech Central Station (article)


It's a universal law of capitalism: when an industry faces a new and significant threat to its profits and powers it turns to the government for protection. Well, bloggers who write on current events are challenging the mainstream media (MSM), the most politically well-connected industry in America. Watch for the MSM to start using their political influence to burden bloggers.


This is a good article about the future problems that bloggers might have if the old media industry fights to stay alive, as is, instead of changing with the times.

A good preview of this fight might be the fight that P2Pers fight right now. Because, now think about this, newspapers going around suing bloggers for copyright infringement, much like how the music goons are suing P2Pers seems like a logical next step *if* the media feels threatened by blogs. So lets hope the suing does not win out over P2P. (Oh and the key in the P2P fight will be when BitTorrent is attacked, if it stands, P2P will win, if it falls P2P will be hurt beyond repair.)
All in time...

Friday, March 25, 2005


bigredlance (pic)

Here is a very spiffy pic that lance took while down around Colorado Springs for spring break. The title: "Pike's Peak in a Hole". The name fits the pic.

Short update

I have added chris' new blog as well as my dad's (gary) new blog to the side bar. I have a couple of other blogs to add as well on the side, which i will do when i get the time. Also,i have some pics i want to post, but for now i am spending time with michelle and gary, so when they leave i will get to work on updating this.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

PSP

PlayStation.com (site)

Here is Sony's page about the PSP. It looks good as a gaming platform, but what i really want it for is an internet/media platform. So if they could get Word on it and a good internet browser for it i would consider buying it. If they do not, i may start to relook at PDAs or comparable device.

One thing that i do like about it is a USB port that it has, which hopefully means i can hook up a small hard drive to it (10gig or so) to carry around media for it.

Flickr (pics)

This is a slide show of people that have a desktop that is the same as what is behind their computer. It's a very neat idea, and if i had something interesting behind my monitor then i would do it for my desk top. But a white wall just doesn't cut it.

Pop a tea pill if you can't have a cuppa

yahoo news (article)


Indian tea scientists have produced a tea-flavoured pill that can be chewed or quickly dissolved in hot or cold water.


mmm... tea pill.
I prob. would not buy this myself, but i would like to try them to see what they taste like.
...maybe i like tea too much....

pics to come.

Man time goes by fast when you do alot of things.

I really don't even know what day it is... Thursday?

anyways the last couple of days we (nicole michelle and i have been in lawrence, jenette chris and gary came up there yesterday). We went to newgens after trivia at Bw3 on Tuesday and stayed there until late last night. We played ps2 and went around town while there. It was a good time.
Today we have just done stuff around aggivile, so not much to talk about.

I'll get some pics up from the last couple of days soon.

Plane Crash Lands on Baseball Field

Plane Crash Lands on Baseball Field (vid)

Here is your crazy video for the day; a plane thought that a baseball field would be a good place to land. Turns out it isn’t.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005


Ztar2
Here is a fun new game. It is like Bejeweled, but with a twist that actually makes it fun. So far my best score is 37,500.
Beat that.

Out with the old, in with the new.
No Devil Bees! : CafePress.com

Let the joyous news ring out that you, yes you, conquered the Devil Bees! Let your mom know by postcard, let your friend know by running by him in a track suit. And what better way to let your neighbor know than by a BBQ apron that reminds him how YOU saved the planet from the Devil Bees!

^_^

Monday, March 21, 2005

Yahoo! bought Flickr!

Boing Boing (blargticle)

Well holy crap, this Google vs Yahoo vs MSN is getting good. I hope none of them drop out of trying to be number one; cause the competition between all three is making the internet very interesting.

Now, who wants to buy my blog and give me uber amounts of money for it? Anyone?

Attention TV Workers And Fans...and those who are both

Champaign Media Watch (blargticle)

That is one small link for him, one giant leap for my blog.

This is the first link back to one of my blargticles where i know i gave somebody information that they did not know before reading my blog, and it was important enough for him to write his own blargticle about it. After seeing this, my dealings with the Devil Bees earlier today seem like nothing.
^_^

After the game we celebrated our near win with milkshakes and cherry Cokes at the best late night joint in all of T-town; Steak and Shake. This place always hires the craziest people and always has the best cherry coke available outside of Lyons Soda Fountain in Colorado.
By the time we were ready to go I was pretty sugared up, so the trip home went by really fast (it seemed like it only took ten minutes). By the time we got home I was so tired I just crashed.

Today, was nowhere near as fun as yesterday, so instead of talking about what happened, let’s just assume I saved the planet from the devil bees and their plan to make Martha Stewart their Queen.

Hurray for me!

Here are Chris and Jenette with their awesome new jerseys. I bet you wish you had those jerseys, don’t cha?

The game was pretty good. They played much better last night than the first two times we saw them. It ended up that we lost in a shoot-out three to two, but that is ok, we still had a good time watching the game. And I hope the T’Rants had enough support this year to keep them around in the city for years to come.

(Last night the T’Rants wore their blue jerseys, so that’s our team in blue in the pic.)

Since the service was so fast at Sarape’s, we made it to the arena rather early. So this is what we ended up doing for about thirty minutes while we waited for them to let us in to the arena so we could go to the bathroom.

By the time the doors opened there was a pretty good sized crowd waiting to get in and there was a good number of Oklahoma Blazers fans in along with the Tarantula fans. When we got in we didn’t go to the bathroom right away because all the merchandise was half off since it was the last game of the season for the T’Rants. We got a tan (home) jersey, and jenette and chris got a blue (away) jersey and an orange (third) jersey.
Then we went to the bathroom.

Sarape’s turned out to be better than I expected. It reminded me of El Charro back home (in Garden). The food was brought out very quickly, and was good. We think that there might have been cinnamon in the enchilada sauce, which gave it a very different taste than other Mexican places. If you are ever in Topeka and have a hankerin for some good Mexican food, stop by Sarape’s, it’s pretty good (and cheap too).

When we got to Sarape’s we took a short tour of what else was sharing the same parking lot. This was the winner of the contest to grab our attention. As we pulled into our parking spot the other group showed up as well, so we all looked around the store for a minute. They were nice people working there, but there wasn’t too much extreme going on... well there was a tie-dyed t-shirt that had a pattern of a cross on it, that was kinda extreme...
But there was not time for pondering, we were all hungry.

On the way to dinner we stopped at the Gate Keeper. It used to be the best Games Workshop store in Kansas, but since Patch and Crows opened, the Gate Keeper has not had that title. Anyways, there wasn’t much of note in the store except for a flying Marge in the cheap bin for three bucks. For some reason Nicole really wanted to have it, and so now we are owners of a flying Marge...
Oh yeah it makes sounds as well. :)

Since I chose to go to Barnes and Noble, I let Nicole decide where to go next. Due to a lack of time and places, we went to the mall. Most of went on in the mall was clothes looking. Not one of my favorite sports. I did get to go to some game stores, so the trip to the mall resulted in a wash, we didn’t buy anything, and by the time we got done it was time to head off to Sarape’s to met Chris, Jenette, Aaron, and as we found out Amber, for dinner.

After Best Buy we hopped across Wanamaker and went to Barnes and Noble. We just looked at the cheap books but that didn’t stop me from getting a book about the history of map making, a guide to Egyptian pyramids, and a fondue cookbook. Nicole got two math logic quiz books to use for warm-ups for her classes.

I like book stores, especially ones that smell so good.

Sunday, March 20, 2005


After what seemed like a quick trip to Topeka, our first stop was at Best Buy. Nicole and I walked around here for awhile, looking at computers, cameras, and huge TVs... it would be nice to have lots of money...
We finally left when we got fed up with the guys that were working there having no idea what they were talking about when recommending cameras, and turning people away from choosing good cameras to point and shoot Kodak’s... *grumble grumble*
Oh well.

Saturday: in pictures.
(because today was spent playing around at home, so there is not much to talk about...)

Yesterday we got up early (about 9) and I went out to walsmart to get some foam board and some butter. When I got back Nicole had lunch ready, which was ruben sandwiches. They were pretty good, not great, but good. After lunch we headed on out to Topeka for a day of fun. But before we hit the highway we stopped at Patch and Crow’s-nest so that I could pick up the new White Dwarf.

Day One: Success.

The first day of spring break was a success. I won't go into detailnow (I'll talk more about today when i get the pics loaded), but the summary for the day is Topeka.

Well i'm off to do a quick net surfage and then head off to bed.

Friday, March 18, 2005

The Screen Savers; done.

This just in: G4 royally sucks.

As you may know G4 has now completely consumed the far superior channel TechTV. The last good show from TechTV was The Screen Savers, and today was their last show. "Oh don't worry." they said, they will be back in a show called "Attack of the Show".... really.

Well i was already fed up with G4, and that is the last time I will watch it for a long while.

But never fear, because Kevin Rose has been making an internet show called The Broken.
Check it out.

Where the hell is matt? *update*

Matt Hudson was just on the screen savers talking about his travels.
Apparently he is now in L.A.

Original post about him here.

Link to his blog, and awesome dancing video here.

Ninjas! (flash)

A good music video about ninja’s killing things. But I can not over look the many images of ninja’s killing pirates; I feel that this may be a precursor to an attack on the Pirate Islands by an army of ninjas. And if their ninjas are as good as the ones in the videos, the Pirate Islands are in deep trouble.

Spamusement!

Spamusement! (site)

Cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines.

...you had me at "Hope you're hungry"

good for a laugh or two.

Before I go to bed:

Tonight game night returned after a couple weeks off. We ate corned beef and cabbage, and played the game “Pass the Pigs”. Aaron took a commanding lead in the game, but I was able to pull out a win in the end. So once again my pig rolling abilities are confirmed as the greatest of the group. Now, on to nationals! :)

Janel blogs

I ran across two good blogs this evening while strolling along the Blogway. Both done by the one-word-wonder Janel, or Jane line... i can't tell. Anyways, they are a good read. One example (she was at a babyshower):


While I was thinking, "Good god, there are two of them and one of them can still reproduce", the mother/daughter unit exclaimed "Brilliant minds think alike!" I had to bite my tongue to not blurt out: "Yeah, so do idiotic minds."


oh funny stuff. ^_^
here are the links:
Just thoughts
Janel's Photo Blog

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Lycos/Tripod blogging tool

Kinross_19 (blog)

So Lycos (tripod) has made their blogging tool, trying to get it out before Yahoo 360. It is noting special, and as far as i can see there is nothing that sets it apart from blogger or bubbler. But if you want to give it a shot the link to start is here.

Murray found guilty

The Manhattan Mercury (article)


Thomas Murray sat quietly and his former in-laws sobbed with relief this morning as a Douglas County court clerk read the verdict in the Kansas State University professor's murder trial: Guilty.


That’s too bad. I was hoping that he was innocent. For those of you who want to be in the know, Chris had him for a prof. apparently a semester after he killed his wife. Chris initially thought he was innocent, but seeing the evidence in the trial made it somewhat obvious that he was guilty.

Human Interface Technology New Zealand

Human Interface Technology New Zealand (site)

These guys are doing alot with one of my favorite new topics; Augmented Reality. This links to a page that has a slew of projects that they are working on. neat stuff.

13 things that do not make sense

New Scientist (article)


DON'T try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.


There is some good stuff in this article. About half of it i already i have heard about, such as the WOW signal. The other half is very interesting, for example, there is evidence that light reacted differently with metals in the past, and that electrons are losing charge.
Strange things abound in this article.

Generate

Generate (site)

This is an internet store that deals with very nifty things that light up.

A new blog and some lunchage

Nettymus' Blog (blog)

Jenette has started to work on her blog, so it'll be worth checking up on now.

Right now I am waiting for 20 minutes to tick by, because we are having a prospective student stop by, so some of us grad students are gonna go out to eat with him (yay free lunch!). So far all i know about him is:
1) Its a him.
2) He's comming over from Lawrence.
3) Because of him i get a free lunch, maybe even at Pizza Hut buffet (i hope, i hope).

Heres to academics!

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Shock, coke, sleep

We just got back from Dillions. And man, I have never been shocked more than that trip there. I dont know what it was but about every minute I would get shocked by something, once hard enough to make my finger tip numb. Its crazy.

Also we have coke again. I will always remember the great Coke shortage that we had here for the last two days. We were forced to go to our can reserves. I hope no oneever has to live through a Coke drought like we had. It wasnt pretty.

Im tired.

Worship the Printer Devil, or no printouts for you!

What is so hard about making a printer? We spend hundreds of dollars on one, and it still only works 90% of the time. All it is, is a monitor that prints onto paper instead of onto a screen. Think if your computer monitor would work only 90% of thetime, you would be very mad at the manufacture. But when we have a printer that does it we cuss and accept it. Why?
What if your car worked 90% of the time? You need to get to a meeting and it wont start. So you open the hood, blow on a couple of things, unplug some hoses,plug them back in, maybe slap the side of your car. Then it works...
I think that might by why malfunctioning printers are really annoying. You don't really ever fix it, you just cast enough Voodoo on it to get your job printed off, and then let the next guy cast his own spells so he can get his job done. It takes the white wizard down at the print shop to even get three days of trouble free printing done...
Maybe this would be a solution: Lets hire priests to bless each printer as it is made. Because there must be something inherentlyevil about putting what you see on your computer monitor down on paper. If it wasn't evil, and just faulty, it wouldn't wait to mess up until you are running late in the first place.
The stupid little printer daemons are waiting in there going: "Oh look at this guy! He is rushing around, and he just sent us two papers to print! Oh-ho-ho-ho! Watch as i hold up this job for 25minutes. And then when he gives up, lets print it out again and again, so that when he gets back there are *three* copies just waiting for him, all to late to be useful. Ha-ha! Life is great when you are the printer devil."
Well Im off to go work on my level 3 black ink ward spell, if I can master it I can take a black ink cartridge, shake it, and get enough ink out of it to print at least five more pages...

p.s. This is a summary of my day so far.

Fingertime | Klingemon (game)

Well, since i can't stop playing this, i better post it. This is a very short game where you get all the little thingines to stick to your ship... It's not that complicated, or compelling, just addictive.

At the moment my best time is 8:265.
Play, and post your best scores.

Laser Shock

gadgetshop.com (site)


Laser Shock comes in a box with two guns connected to two breastplates. Each player uses the straps to fasten their breastplate to their chest, (the straps are adjustable accommodating most sizes of player), then activates their gun by pressing the reset button and pointing the gun at their opponents breastplate. This will cause the lights on the breastplate to light up – indicating that they have six ‘lives'. Once both players have done this they are ready to battle.

Each player can choose between two intensity levels of electric shock. If you choose to go for the lower level of shock it won't ‘buzz' as much when you take a direct hit, (this happens when your opponent hits your breast plate), but when you shoot your opponent you will only knock off one of their lives. If you choose the higher level setting then the ‘buzz' of a direct hit will be more fierce but because you're prepared to take a greater risk you will knock out two of your opponent's lives every time you're on target.

Each gun is equipped with 5 ‘bullets' - once you've used all your bullets you have to reload – which you do by cocking the gun. You then have to wait 5 seconds for your bullets to be activated, so remember to take cover.


i want! i want!

Do you need some retardness? Here ya go.




teh or teh?

p.s. look at the forum to see details of the costumes. Including real pics of people running away from the towers on September 11th....

Squash


SquashP (game)

this is a crazy breakout sort of game. Its hard, but fun.

Google Search: SamBakZa cake dance flash

Google (search)

woah, i've been looking over referrers, and waddya know i am fourth (3rd in english) for this search. It looks like little by little i am gaining page rank in google.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Xenu

Wikipedia (article)

Today at school, I looked up Battlefield Earth on imdb. Travolta is a Scientologist, so i got distracted about reading about that. One thing is that Xenu is mentioned in the movie. Here is a part of the wiki for Xenu:


In Scientology doctrine, Xenu is a galactic ruler who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes, and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to cause people problems today. These events are known to Scientologists as "Incident II," and the traumatic memories associated with them as The Wall of Fire or the R6 implant. L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, detailed the story in Operating Thetan level III (OT III) in 1967, famously warning that R6 was "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it." The Xenu story was the start of the use of the volcano as a common symbol of Scientology and Dianetics from 1968 to the present day.



crazy.

Buzz Game

Yahoo (game/ site)

This is a game, put on by Yahoo, where you trade shares of hot topics. Much like the Blogshares game, but with words, and since i already have a Yahoo account, it was easy to join.

where's my money? All on Tivo.

Flash / Kenya (Flash)

From the makers of Badgers, comes Kenya....
They have lions and tigers.

The Three-Minute Abortion Debate

Bruce Bethke (blargticle)


Come on down to Frogtown some Saturday night and watch the cops bust the working girls for what they do with their bodies. While you're at it, why don't you get falling-down drunk and drive there? To protect others we routinely set limits on what people can do with their own bodies.


not to get into a moral debate (thats what julia's blog is for ^_^), but this article is a very good summary of a pro-life argument, sans religion.

And if you want to know, i think abortions in 100 years will be viewed as barbaric as how whites treated blacks 100 or so years ago.

(one reason being the chance of an unwanted pregnancy will be near zero)

and it's not sld!

This morning was one of the most productive mornings that i have had in awhile. I got my 320 grading done, got ready for class today, and got my test questions off to Dr.Higgins. All I have left to do is 722 homework, but that has been pushed back until after Spring Break, so my want to work on it is low.
Also today i found out why i wasn't getting alot of the emails that my students say they are sending me. It is because they are using my old eid of sld. The only reason that ihave that eid is because when i first started teaching you could not be a student and an instructoron the same account, so that was my instructor account. But now my normal account is both, so i don't deal with my sld eid at all anymore.
But i had a suspicion that people searched it out on K-State Online and were trying to get a holdof me that way, and sure enough they were. Oh well, if they can't read the syllabus where i have my correct email then i guess it's their own fault...

must remember to tell them in class today my correct email addy.

How to Spot a Dictatorship

Coyote Blog (blargticle)


1. Michael Moore portrays the country as a kite-flying paradise
2. Jimmy Carter sanctioned their last election
3. The UN certifies that there is no genocide
4. They sign friendship pacts with other dictatorships (also here and here and here too)
5. They are a member of the UN Human Rights commission (not 100% foolproof but getting closer every year)
6. They were once a French colony, and/or France is opposing sanctions against it (also here too)
7. Their people are impoverished and they lag the world in economic growth


true dat.

Daily Show Clips

Daily Show Clip Listing Parser (site)

Like the Daily Show? Then you'll love all the clips of the show online.

Monday, March 14, 2005

how to blog

tonypierce.com busblog (blargticle)


15. dont be afraid if you think something has been said before. it has. and better. big whoop. say it anyway using your own words as honestly as you can. just let it out.


This blargticle won the 2005 bloggies award for the best blargticle. It is a very good article about how to write so that you have a successful blog. (success does not always mean alot of people visit your blog.) Anyways its a good read.

Beware pizza of freezerland!

A quick quick.

Today has been a normal Monday, but it is the first Monday that I dont have to teach my night class this semester. Boo-yeah!

Also, I am quite hungry... Ill see what frozen pizza wants to get ate today.
Mwhahahaha!

SamBakZa.net (site)

yay! avoision found the first video from SamBakZa. This one is titled "There She Is". It tells the story of how the cat and rabbit met, which is continued in The Cake Dance.

(on the sambakza site click on the Korean words on the top of the page. To get to the videos)

Also it is interesting to note that avoision used the same frame of the Cake Dance as I did to post about it. But they are different pics, i checked. So, he took his own screen capture, but it happened to be on the same frame that I used for mine.

Sunday, March 13, 2005


After they left Nicole and I went to check out the new building next to panera, it is gonna be a arby’s. That is ok I guess... I would rather have it be a Wahoo’s Fish Taco though...

Upon inspection of the building we found this sign. I think the maker'’s of the sign’'s like'’s '’s... ^_^

After that we went to target, and then came home.

And there you have it, my weekend.

Today we got up took showers then ate at panera before michelle and co. left.

After working on the project for awhile we came home, ordered pizza hut pizza and watched Oceans 11. I had forgotten how good that movie was. After the movie Jenette and chris worked on the report some, and then we went to bed. I guess a good chunk of last night was used up by adding things to michelles blog. Good times.

Yesterday, we woke up putzed around, ate lunch at chili’s, my mom and I headed on over to the school to work on the Masters report some. We managed to fill up two white boards with stuff. And I think she has a pretty good grasp of the math behind her project now.

After they got done prom dress shopping, we had steak for dinner. After dinner we milled around, and then went to bed.

It was not that fun, so I went to the mall.

My weekend: In pictures.

Friday after Chipotle, I went with Michelle and my mom to look at prom dresses.

MirrorMask

Sony Pictures (site)

Here is a movie that looks like it will be interesting to see. alot of CG, but it this case i think that is a good thing. Check out the trailer.

Saturday, March 12, 2005


Ok, i'm home for a minute... Here is Chris and Michelle at Chipotle. (we did that yesterday).

Today we woke up ate lunch at chili’s then I helped my mom with her paper. Now I am home, and gonna make some tea.

I’ll post more later today...