Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Mad Part 6

Alice happens upon Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they write songs.



Link to Mad Part 1
Link to Mad Part 5

Ringmania 2


Ringmania 2

Qualite Pepere has made a sequel to their Ringmania game. They call it, Ringmania 2. In the game you move a structure around trying to match three colors up so that that they are removed, when all the rings on the structure are remove you move on to the next level. If you need a ten or so minute break from your Wednesday check it out. And then do a crazy dance.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Mad Part 5

Alice finds herself talking to the White Rabbit.



Link to Mad Part 1
Link to Mad Part 4

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Mad Part 4 (Alice, Mom)

Alice get's home from school, talks to her mom.




Link to Mad Part 1
Link to Mad Part 3

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Friday, May 26, 2006

Mad Part 2

Alice talks to her parents about birthday plans.



Link to: Mad Part 1

Ready To Eat Bacon. (Manna for the Gentiles)

Ready to eat bacon is one of the marvels of the modern kitchen. No, it does not taste any better than freshly cooked bacon, in fact it doesn't taste nearly as good as the home-fried version. So why it is so wonderful? Because bacon in any form rocks. And when you have it already cooked, bacon finds many more reasons to be ate. For example, I just made a sandwich, it was just a boring turkey sandwich, but I added bacon and my taste buds built me a shrine, a shrine for those that make very tasty things. Got a baked potato? Well, really bacon has to go on a potato, and now everyone can do it with ready bacon. And let me tell you, you haven't lived until you have had a bacon sandwich made out of bacon, butter and an apple cinnamon muffin. Now that is what I call "Health-B Food".
The B is for bacon.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Mad Part 1

This will be the first of 25 (!) part series of videos that are from the play that Michelle produced, and Michelle and I wrote. I have video from all three nights that it was put on, so I will try to get the best take from the nights to post here.

This first part is the introduction to the play, it is the White Rabbit singing to Alice. (p.s. the first 30 seconds or so is just the song with the lights off; it's supposed to be that way.)



The song is Tonight, Tonight by Smashing Pumpkins

(Sorry for the bad focusing at times, since this part was done at such low light all of the videos that I have of it have problems focusing; the rest of the play the video camera had no problems with.)

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Two pics

I just want to share with you two pics that I found today.
First is Mario made out of push-pins that this guy did.

Secondly is the Mt. Dew King:

I have always regarded him as a legend, an old wife's tale, but now that I know the Mt. Dew King is real, I am utterly amazed. We should go on a pilgrimage to meet him and pay him homage.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Reality Access Memory

"The interesting question isn't 'what they wrote', it's 'did they actually write anything?'" Dylan said as he took a sip of his freshly bought coffee.
"What do you mean? The general population of all modern societies have more-or-less all kept journals of their daily life. It would be very interesting to find out what daily life was around the eighteen hundreds. It is sad that most journals are lost forever, and with it the knowledge that they possessed of the seemly mundane life of their authors." Cory responded, almost as if he has thought about idea for years, which, perhaps he has.
"I'm not arguing that the knowledge that we could gain from reading journals from the past would be immense. What I am saying is something a bit stranger. What if they never wrote anything in their journals? What if it was all scribbles?" Dylan takes another sip of his coffee, looking over the edge of the cup to see if Cory is even paying attention. He is.
Cory cocked his head at the notion. "That is absurd. Are you saying that people in the past sat down and scribbled for hours on end? Why would they do that, and besides we do have a few journals, we know that they wrote words in them."
Dylan was ready. "I know that of the journals that we have from the time, they are –they are filled with words. But what about the journals that we don't have now? Are... were... they filled with words?"
"Why would you think anything different?" Cory squinted back.
"I know..." Almost a sip of coffee, ready for Cory to ask.
"..you know? Know what?" Cory sits back getting ready for the punch line of the joke that he doesn't follow.
"You know the project that I have been working on? With the lasers and mirrors and whatnot" Dylan says as he stares into his coffee, starting to swirl it.
"Yeah."
"Well, it worked. It was a stupid idea, But it worked." Dylan sighed.
"Ok, it worked, now what was it supposed to do? Slow light down or something." Cory said trying to remember the details that Dylan said months ago about the project.
"Yeah, basically. Well it worked better than I thought. Way better. It, somehow... somehow reversed light, and... " Dylan looks up at Cory and gives a 'here it goes' kind of look "...and I went back in time..." Dylan waits for the hammer to drop from Cory, but it doesn't come, Cory is stunned, and rightfully so.
"Well here's the deal, it's not as useful as I thought. First off I was able to only be in the past for maybe 5 minutes, max, then I was sucked back to the present. I went back about two maybe three years ago. And..."
"..No that is awesome, five minutes is fine, and you get to see what..." Cory seemed to get a little twinkle his eye.
"...No, there is another problem. The past is full of static."
"What? What do you mean static?" Cory replies.
"Well most things seem like normal but some things, it seems personal things were just... oh you know, blurry, or pixilated, or just static. It's hard to explain." Dylan seemed to have lost interest in his coffee, and seemed to be more interested in staring, or remembering ...or both.
"Well give me an example." Cory said, with a newfound love of being nervous.
Dylan was ready "Ok, here is one, and this brings me to my original statement. You know Dr.Tolling, my Major Professor?"
"Yeah" Cory knew it was one of the guys down at the lab, he was sure knowing the specific person was not that important.
"Well, he kept notes in a personal journal while working on stuff in the lab. He never let anyone look in the journal, and we never did. Well when he died he requested to be buried with his journals."
"Oh, that guy, OK now I know who you are talking about." Cory said, finally able to put the name with the face.
"Well, when I went back in time one of his journals was out, and I looked in it, and get this. All the lab diagrams that he designed are in there."
"And?" Cory says, still waiting for the punch line of the joke.
"The other notes, they weren't there. Well they were there but they were scribbles. They weren't text, just pages full of scribbles...pages." Dylan said "And I know that he wrote real things in there, words, not scribbles." Dylan was staring to show that this too was stirring him up.
"How can that be." Cory said/thought.
"Other things too, I started to look everywhere, and things seemed to be normal, except for things that were personal notes of his... and of other people too, they were just static-y scribbles, not really even there."
"So what does this mean?" Cory said very intrigued.
"Well, this is what I can get of it." Dylan took a deep breath "anything that is not known now was static. The lab designs that were in the journal were fine, but his personal notes were not readable. Anything that no one currently knows about is just static in the past. They don't really exist anymore. So Dr.Tolling spent all his time writing scribbles, not words, well they may have been words at the time, but now... well now in the past they are just scribbles. So for arguments sake he spent all that time just writing scribbles... Anything from the past that is not known now is just static." Dylan sits back in his chair as if it is the first time that he thought of the concept, although it isn't.
Cory matches Dylan's posture "Why would that happen? Why would things that are unknown currently just be static?"
"I don't know, maybe there has to be something with the way we perceive the universe." Dylan says seemly exhausted.
"Well I have an idea, can your time machine work the other direction?" Cory says sitting up.
"I would guess so, I don't know, it wasn't really supposed to work in the first place, but I guess." Dylan eyes his friend.
"Ok then, take this napkin into the future and read it." Cory writes something on the napkin and folds it up and gives it to Dylan. "Now don't read it until you get into the future. If the static is based off of the current knowledge then you shouldn't be able to read it when you open it in the future."
"That is true. Ok, well I need to get off to bed; I think I have a good amount of work to do tomorrow." Dylan says as he gathers his stuff.
"Alright, same time tomorrow night?" Cory grabs his hat.
"Yup, see ya."
"Good luck"
They both head out home for the night.
***
"So? How did it go?" Cory says as he writes things down in his journal, moving his stuff over to make room for Dylan.
"It said 'Napkin', and you wrote the 'I' in napkin as a 1. It was as easy to read now as it was in the future." Dylan says, as if stunned.
"That is strange. And you didn't read it until you were in the future?"
"Yup." Dylan sighs.
"So how was the future?" Cory says having stopped writing in his journal after he saw the state that Dylan was in.
"It was fine, nothing was static-y." Dylan still was in a daze.
"That is strange. They would only the past have static? Say how do you spell, calendar?"
"C-A-L-E-N-D-A-R" Dylan replied back, he didn't have to think about how to spell words, it was always easy for him. "But you want to know what is really strange? The world is full of static now. Like right now, some things are blurry, not as bad as in the past, but they are defiantly static-y now. When I got back from the future I noticed a few things were static-y. I don't get it." He looks at Cory. "What are you writing?"
"Well, I had kept them private, but after the talk from last night I went home and scanned all my journals that I have been keeping, and posted everything online. I don't want to just be writing scribbles. I put a lot of work into my journals. And really anything I say can be read by anyone... it really is a waste to keep all of it private." Cory says as he apparently is thinking hard about what to write next.
"Mind if I see?" Dylan asks curious to see what Cory is writing... hopefully nothing about how crazy he is.
"Nah, I don't mind." Cory hands the journal to Dylan.
Dylan starts to thumb through it, and then thumbs through it quicker, and quicker. "Your journal... it's all... it's all scribbles." Dylan says almost as if he is crazy.
"Here!" Cory, takes the journal back "No, they are all words, I can read them! They aren't scribbles, see!" He holds the journal open for Dylan to see a page that Cory must have thought was full of words.
"Nothing, I only see scribbles. Cory, man I hate to say it, but it is scribbles." Dylan says almost as if he is about to have a mental break down.
"Are you saying that all the work I put into all my journals are for nothing!" Cory says as he stands up.
"No, I am just saying that this one has been for nothing. This one will not be known in to the future." Dylan says, trying to calm Cory down.
"I have to go." Cory grabs his coat and buts his journal in his pocket.
"Where?"
"I am going to go scan this one; I haven't scanned this one yet. It has some good ideas in it I don't want it to be lost." Cory hurry heads out the door.
"It doesn't matter, it is already lost." Dylan says as Cory leaves the building. Cory doesn't hear.
Cory hurries across the street and doesn't notice as the journal in his pocket slips out as he jumps over a puddle of water. The journal falls unto the ground and then cartwheels into the drainage hole. Never to be seen again.
Dylan sees it go. And sits back down.
"Now the interesting question is; did Cory actually need to know how to spell calendar?" Dylan thought to himself as he took a drink of his freshly brewed coffee.

Islands

I am one who is always on the look out for a good song, and a song that I just heard on MTV U is a good one. It is done by a group called the Islands and is called Rough Gem. There is no way that you could be sad while listening to this song. If you want to check it out I added it to my StickAM player (on the right sidebar, click to music note, it should be the first song). Comment if you like it or if you like to comment.

Rock, rock on.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Dumbolf


Dumbolf ("game")

Say that you are afflicted with the illness that the doctors call "a will to live". I bet that if the medical community were aware of this game it would prescribe it to all aforementioned patients. Dumbolf is a "game" where you are playing golf in a side scrolling sort of way. It is actually a really good idea. But the levels, oh the levels, they are painfully hard. I wanted to stop playing many times, but I fought the urge to kill something and finished the game. My reward? A score of 1. Righteous!

So if you think that playing a game would be better than actually doing work on Monday, give this game a shot, you'll be doing work in no time!

p.s. My stroke total was 151, they don't total that for you, they give you an overall score instead.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Da Vinci (Code [Review])

Well I wasn't going to get into this now, but my last minute looking at others ratings before I went to bed got me in the mood to post about this movie now, so now is when I will post about it.

So first things first. Take everything I say about movies with a grain of salt, because apparently I have a completely different taste in movies than the rest of the population of America. For example: I though V for Vendetta was crap-poor of a movie, and I think Moulin Rouge is one of the most brilliant films ever made. That is not really how most of the people in the world think about those movies, but it is what i feel about them. Secondly I never read The Da Vinci Code. So what i will tell you here is only about the movie, not about the book. That's how movie reviews are suppose to go... many movie critics failed to remember that.

Ok, so how was the movie? Well if I had to summarize it in four letters it would be: Good. It really is a good movie. I really can't say much about the plot because of spoilers, but I will say that it is a very satisfying story, with only a couple of disappointing parts. (Don't read on if you don't want any hints on anything in the movie. I won't blurt out anything, but if you can crack codes like Tom Hanks then you might not want to read on.)

First the disappointing parts (without giving things away...hopefully). My biggest peeve was 'apple'. Ugh. That made me mad. I doubt that would really be it. Anyways. The other thing i don't really like isn't something having to do with the movie, but stuff like that in general. It has to do with finding the Holy Grail to disprove Divinity, I really don't see how it would...

Now the things i liked. First the movie had many twists and puzzles that were fun to watch being solved. This leads to my second thing that I really liked about the movie. They showed how thinking works visually really well (the planets for example... for yous that have seen the movie). To me that is almost how I think about things and the effect really impressed me. It was sort of like how 'Beautiful Mind' showed how he found patterns, but a bit more refined. (Same guy that did Beautiful Mind did this movie.) The actors did a good job playing their parts, and were believable. I found the movie very entertaining to watch, and there really weren't any parts besides 'apple' that I really said "wait just a minute!" and was brought out of the world that they were creating in the movie.

Well, like I said, overall that movie was good, and worth a full price ticket to go see. I really think the critics are way off in saying that this movie is mediocre, and the religious zealots really shouldn't have any beef with this movie... unless they *are* hiding things... hummm. But then again my taste in movies seems to be way off of others so you should just go and see the movie and judge it yourself.

In anycase it got me +325 P:BSE points. ^_^

Friday, May 19, 2006

Chillaxing in the Justinax0r

Disregarded the title, i don't know what i'm talking about.

Anyways i am here in Justin Hall after a rousing game of Disc golf. This gives me the first blow in the Project: Best Summer Ever (+250 points). On slate for today is Applebee's and then the Da Vinci Code (more pbse points). (You can check out some pics for the golfing over on Chirs' blog, most notably the murdered squirrel.)

Rock on.

Avalanche VS Red Wings

Amber showed me a very cool video yesterday. It has light sabers, hockey, and bad dubbing. And we see the true nature of the Red Wings. Worth a watch!


Rock on!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Project: Best Summer Ever '06

Project: Best Summer Ever is back! If you had the Best Summer Ever last year and are yearning for an even better summer this year, then wait no longer! This year I have set up a wiki where all missions and points are tracked. That means that everyone playing along will be able to update their scores on the wiki and they will be able to add missions and bonuses for missions for everyone to do.

If you want to play along this year go to the pbse wiki, and add you name (and any missions you want to attempt). The password to get in to edit pages is: pbse06. If you need any help or have any comments let me know.

Now get out there and have the Best Summer Ever!

(Here is PBSE from last year.)

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Short Circuit


Short Circuit

Short Circuit is a neat "dodge the things" kind of game, but the twist is that the music plays an important part of the game, and it will give some indication of what the pattern the objects will fly in. The game is very hard and very fun. Check it.

My high score so far is 11,560. (And I can't even get close to that again, I think I got real luck that one time.)

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

What? What? What?

My uncle Randy came down for Michelle's graduation and brought his new beagle Sandy with him. Sandy was raised as a hunting dog until Randy got him. So Sandy still isn't used to mirrors and glass and weird noises. So when we were making noises with balloons Sandy had no idea what it was. You can almost hear him thinking "What is that? What is that? What is that?..." It was pretty funny, check it out:

Monday, May 15, 2006

What a weekend.

Between My graduation and Michelle's graduation our family is two degrees smarter. Well, I guess Michelle's graduation isn't really a degree, it's a diploma.

But I had a good time this weekend seeing all the family and some of the friends. We waited to leave Garden until we ate dinner with Andy last night, which meant that we got back around 4 this morning. :P

Ok I'll get some pics up when I get a chance. Until then check out this place for some free music.

Friday, May 12, 2006

One step smarter

Today was a long day. I want to go to bed. But I had a good time, and I am officially one degree smarter than what I was when I woke up this morning.

(Sam, Alan, and I, part of the Stat rolling crew.)

Rock on!

Wii

I have been grading finals almost non-stop all day since 7am (with normal meal breaks-etc...) Now I am finally done with that. Well, while I was slaving away some other people down in California have been having fun down at E3.
The biggest news out of E3 is how Nintendo has regained alot of the ground they have lost with the fans. For example, here is the line to play with the new Nintendo gaming console Wii:

If you want to check out the system go here.
It really looks like it'll bring Nintendo to the front of gaming once again.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

E3 so far



Made with StripGenerator

Norm!

When I have work to do in the morning I tend to end up at Radina's, Manhattan's bestest coffee shop. Recently I have noticed that there is a fair amount of regulars that seem to always be there. It is quite funny to watch their interactions, because it almost seems like an episode of Cheers. Today was a great episode.

Apparently today was one of the regular's husband's birthday, so he was going to meet up her at the shop. Word got around that it was his birthday, and so another guy got everyone in the room to be ready to sing happy birthday when he showed up. (Imagine this as a Cheers episode; it really happened like it was on the show.) When the guy opened the door to the coffee shop the whole store starts singing happy birthday. He didn't change the expression on his face and walked back out of the shop, and grabbed a newspaper to read until the song was over. Then he came back in the shop, and everyone (as if rehearsed) waited until he walks all the way to the line to order his drinks and sings him happy birthday again. (Which he stuck around for this time.)

Monday, May 08, 2006

A Chain Reaction Game

A Chain Reaction Game v.3 (game)

Here is some finals week mindless fun. The point of the game is to blow up as many things as possible using a chain reaction like principle. There really in no strategy to this game, which is a good thing for finals week. So far my high score is 424.

If you should be doing things for school then check this game out.

The homestretch.

Finals week, that's all that left.

Last weekend Pickle came down on a business trip to KC. So on Friday and Saturday Nicole, Jenette and I went to Lawrence to visit Newgen and on Saturday Pickle and Jeff. The first thing we did on Saturday is go to Local Burger; "the next generation of burger joints". I got an elk burger, it was good, it had a clean good food taste.

After lunch we went to go play disc golf. It was cloudy and soggy, but it was still fun.


After disc golf we ate at 75th street brewery, which is another pretty good place in Lawrence.


Yesterday I spend the day at home, replenishing my power meter so that I can use my special moves to finish off finals week.

Friday, May 05, 2006

#2 Down

I just got done giving my second presentation of the week. This one was about my experiences with statistical consulting, specifically working on a paper about assessing the health of marriages.
I think that the presentation went well, and there were only a few light questions afterwards. (Which means I either explained things well, or I put everyone to sleep.) So now I have just a rather difficult final to do and make corrections to my master's report and this semester will be over.

Rock, rock on!

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Master's Report Defense *Updated!*


Today is the big day.
(Eeep!)

Update: Although there are a couple of things I need to change with the report, overall I passed .

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Zombie Infection Simulation


Everyone knows that the threat of a zombie attack is an important matter of national security. That is why the Zombie Infection Simulation is a valuable piece of research. The simulation takes random population of people (purple dots) and one zombie (green dot) and lets them mingle. When the people see the zombie they panic, and run, while the zombie goes after them. If the zombie catches a person there is a chance that they too will become a zombie. The simulation continues until there are only people or zombies left.

This simulation has showed me a couple of things:
1. Don't get stuck in a dead in with a zombie.
2. Find a remote area to hide in where it is hard for a zombie to find you.
3. In the end everyone will become a zombie, there is no way around it.

Be prepared for a zombie attack! Run the zombie simulation now so that you learn how to maximize your time alive!

Katamari rocks

I helped Maria moved out of her apartment the other day, and in the shuffle I offered to house her PS2 at my place, for free of course. (Needles to say she was very happy to find a place that would store her Play Station without charge. ^_^) So, now during my brakes in my day I have been playing Katamari Damacy. And let me tell you; if you have never played this game you are missing out, big time. It is one seemingly drug induced video game extravaganza where you roll things up into a ball. If you don't believe me that the game was made by people who were on drugs check out the opening:



Does that not rock?

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Digital Dog-In-A-Shell

It just figures: The one day when I get a class cancelled I leave my jacket in a previous class, so I have to wait until the canceled class would have normally been done before I can get it and actually go home.

Anyways, as promised here is a present for Moral Turpitude for finding the best time to give a Dog-In-A-Shell as a present (A Bark Mitzvah):


It's a Digital Dog-In-A-Shell! Presented by 'Model Rules of Professional Responsibility' and 'Con Law Supplement'.
But it seems that Moral Turpitude isn't impressed.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Audio Dream Blog

Jenette has been posting her dreams on NettyBear using audio blogger. (As far as I can tell it is the only audio dream blog on the internet.) Her descriptions are very detailed and the dreams are a unique combination of crazy and bizarre that only dreams could make. They are quite entertaining, and since they are audio posts you can listen to them while you play on the internet. I highly recommend checking them out.