Dr. Pontius

A good guy.

And something I bet you didn't know about him.

Crazy Pool

Crazy Pool is a pool like game where you try to get the same colored balls hit each other. There is a certain time limit to each level and you must make all the ball disappear before the time is up. Each level takes only a minute, so it is very easy to keep on playing this for 15 or 20 minutes after you told yourself to stop, if you are into that kind of game.

The highest level that I have finished is 20 with a total score of 3545. Common, give it a try.

Best Picture Ever found!

*UPDATED*

The contest is over! Here is the Best Picture Ever:

An email I wrote to Jason:

Hi Jason,
I ran a little contest on my blog where I found the top image results on various search engines for the term "best picture ever". Then the readers of my blog voted on what they thought was the best picture ever.

Well congratulations! Your picture of a guy at a Burger King (http://gohlkusmaximus.com/last11months/last11months-Images/30.jpg) has been decided as the best picture ever.

You don't win anything, and you do not get anymore fame than you currently have. But I did make a little icon for the award, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have the best picture ever.
If you want to stop on by my blog and accept your award you are free to do so: kinross19.blogspot.com.
Thank you for your time, and congratulations again,
Shannon (Ookami Snow)

Now lets see if he accepts this award and this rocking icon I made to commemorate this wondrous event:

***UPDATE***
Jason has spoke:

Well, I'm just blown away. I'm honored. I'd like to thank everyone involved.

Seriously, though, thanks, that's hilarious. I really did think it was the best picture ever, and apparently image search results and your readers agreed. I'll put up the award with pride.

(I don't know what my friend who's in the picture will think, but, you know, I'm sure he'll be honored too. If I tell him.)

It looks like the Best Picture Ever contest was a success. Thanks for everyone's help.

24 Skinks 1 Day

Paint 24 Skinks in one day. That was my goal when I picked up a box of skinks from Patch and Crow's Nest on the way home from school on Friday. Unfortunately I got too distracted on Friday to get even close to done (I got them put together) but for most of Saturday I was devoted to painting all the skinks that day. I finished up at 4am and was basically done, all that was needed was a matte finish. So I was able to get done with a box of skinks in two days. Not too bad.

Today was Rzan and Steff's wedding party. (they got married in Hawaii, and didn't offer to pay for ANYONE to come with, humph! See if I offer to buy them a Play Station 3 when it comes out.) It was a good time and we also got to eat dinner with Newgen.

Oh, also we played disc golf this weekend, I got a -10 and Chris got -11, the best scores ever for our campus course (prev. best was -9). And I can say that it is the best score ever because some of the holes we made up, so we are the only people that play "our" disc golf course.

So yeah, it was a good weekend.

hitching rides with buddha

First let me say that I do not read books. But Charity let me borrow Hitching Rides with Buddha by Will Ferguson (also called Hokkaido Highway Blues) and after just the first couple of pages I was hooked. This true story is about Will as he hitchhikes through Japan following the cherry blossoms one spring. If I were to write a book it would turn out like this -if I was funny, witty, and a good wordsmith, all of which I am not, atleast compared to Will Ferguson. The book is very funny one page and very insightful the next, with glimpses about the truth of himself and Japan throughout the book. Now, I don't really read books, but I do suggest this book to everyone, even those of us who don't read books. Not many things make me laugh out loud (LOL for you younglings); I did many times with this book.

(Thanks Charity for letting me barrow it!)

Picture Siren

We just had a pretty big storm roll through. There was lots of rain, lots of lightning and even tornado sirens, although it must have been a false alarm because, as Chris put it- "it just didn't feel like a tornado". But we still headed on down to the vet med building in case there actually was a tornado (that is our Apts. designated storm shelter). Even though there wasn't a tornado, the trip wasn't a compete wash as we went up to the third floor balcony of the building and watched the lightning. I took some pics and one of them turned out to be interesting:


But that was my adventure for the night. Soon I will be off to bed, it's not even 12 and I am already tired, dang you school!

Super Mario and Zelda Cereal

I don't even know where to start with this one. Yes, I begged and begged until I got this cereal. Yes, I bought it only because it was Mario and Zelda. And no I never finished a box of it. But I have a reason for not finishing a box of it; the Mario cereal was good (as judged by me at the time, like when I was 9 or so) but the Zelda cereal tasted like berry poop. So I would eat all of the Mario cereal, open up the Zelda cereal, let it get old and then beg and beg to get another box. Great marketing on their part.
I also used to eat Pac-Man cereal which was like Lucky Charms but with marshmallow ghosts and Pac-Men, and cereal dots. I would also eat all the marshmallows out of the box and then want a new one.
Oh, while we are on the subject: for awhile I only ate Lucky Charms for breakfast, and I would eat everything except the blue diamonds, which I would take out of the bowl and place on my body as some sort of 80's-marshmallow-y style bling. I got quite sticky from doing this, and I did it all the time. What was I thinking? (This was around kindergarten age)
Anybody else have crazy cereals when they were growing up?

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

I first saw OK Go on K-State's Cable channel, the video that I saw was A Million Ways which is an ok song, but what caught my attention is that the video was just them dancing all done in one take. It was impressive.

Now OK Go has a new video out for their song Here It Goes Again, this time they do the video in one shot dancing on treadmills, and it is pretty nifty. Observe:



Spiff ne?

Dot

Dot is a really unique game. The object is to get all of the colored balls into the black hole and turn them all black. The way you move the balls is what makes this game different, and, at least for me, very addictive. You have a bigger white ball that draws the smaller colored balls to it like balloons to a fuzzy fuzzy sheep. You must drag the colored balloons up with you toward the black hole, but if you go too fast you will drop some balls. You are in a race against time, and so far my best is 5506. You really should give this game a whirl.

("You" total for this post: eight times, a new record)

Best Picture Ever (cont.)

Well apparently people were not happy with my efforts of just using Google to find the best picture ever, so i will include the following images in the voting for my struggle to find the best picture ever, as determined by search engine.

The rules are (and were when i started this) that i will use a search engine's safe setting and use the first two images that pop up as candidates for the search "Best Picture Ever". So here we go:

Google's:
Pilsner on a Hilsner
Burgers for Breakfast

Yahoo's:
Goat C (No you don't want to see this one. Do you want to know more?)
Oh yeah

Ask's:
Pilsner on a Hilsner (again)
Water, Gravel, Ponder

Flickr's:
Charles loves unicorns with wings
Happy Fing Birthday

Picsearch's:
Bug Jar
Oh yeah (again)

Lycos':
Bug Jar (again)
Best Christmas Ever

There, now you have more options. Be sure to let me know which one you think is the Best Picture Ever.

Patrick Stewart Alphabet

Need a smile?

Now why didn't that make it into an episode?

Tama (Kodama)

Feel like throwing things? Then Tama is a game for you. All you have to do is get the ball into the red pool for 100 points or the blue pool for 500 points. If you throw it into the black pool you lose a life. There are a total of 20 levels but I can only get to level 14. My high score so far is 2100. Tama is a hard game to play, but it is also one that is hard to stop playing. Check it out.

The end of Summer.

Oh it was a good one. Tomorrow I go back to school, back to teaching classes, back to taking clases. Summer #26 down.

I had a good one; posted Mad, learned how to program in Processing, redid a backyard, got my own domain name, LAN partied it 100oz. style, got a new laptop, had a rocking July 4th, and a very pirate-y 6th, met new friends, kicked it with old, listened to Jupiter Sunrise acoustic style, retreated to Colorado, listened to Jupiter Sunrise electric style, Estes-ed, and went to Snakes on a Plane.

As with all good things in life I would love to relive this last summer, but I am actually excited to getting back to teaching because I get to teach both of my classes in a new technology classroom.









Actually, I hope that I TiVoed my life, because when it is over I will want to relive it all again. Unfortunately, I don't think that is possible... Oh well, I'll just have to remember to rock it out all the time (sometimes that is hard to remember to do).








See you on the flip side of summer.











p.s.

Snakes on a Plane on my Blog

I just got back from watching Snakes on a Plane, the feel-good movie of the summer. Let me give you a run down of the plot. Ok, so there is this plane, and then there is a guy that put a bunch of snakes on it, go.

If you go into the movie with the knowledge that they made this movie to be corny then it will really be an enjoyable movie. If you think you are going to see a serous action thriller, well you may need to watch James Bond to get something a bit more realistic.

But yes, this movie is worth seeing. If you need something to bring a smile to your face go see this movie.

Don't believe me? Maybe this will convince you:


Still not convinced? Let Samuel L. Jackson tell you about Snakes on a Plane:


No? Daily Show maybe?


More of a Colbert kind of person? Here is his take:


OK last one:

Best Picture Ever?

Among the many things that I am responsible for, I take the honor of the official "Best Picture Ever" finder as the most important job that I just made up. How did I get this job you ask (besides making it up) ? It went like this:

Me: Hi, I'm here for the job of "Best Picture Ever" finder.
Tutrle: Yeah.
Me: So what do you need to know about me?
Turtle: Know Google?
Me: Yup.
Turtle: You are in.

So with this new assignment I went off the Google to find the Best Picture Ever. When I did an image search for "Best Picture Ever" I had the following two images as the top results. Now I need your help, I can't decide which one of the pictures is really the Best Picture Ever:

Picture 1

Picture 2

If you look at the pictures I think that you can agree with me that this is a hard decision. Please let me know what you think, and I'll declare a winner soon.

What is it with(out) wit?

Dear Blog-a-ma-Bob,
I seem to be able to think of sly and witty things to say for comments on other people's blog (well at least I find them sly and witty), but then when it comes time to post on my blog, I have noting witty to say. One would say I am wit-out wit. I am afraid that someone will call me out as falsely advertising my wittiness, because they see my comment and go "Oh my, now thats a guy that is witty, I bet his blog is wittfull". Then they stop by and find out that I have posted a movie trailer, wit was nowhere to be witnessed.

What would welcome witty wonderings? What? What?!?

Japanese are weird?

It seems that Japan is getting ready for Slamball, the sport that takes baskets and balls and mixes with trampolines and awesome:

He could score from the other end of the court.


(Algorithm Exercise!)

Idlewild

What do you think about this movie?


It apparently is the work of Outkast. I think that if they don't hold themselves back and also throw in a unique storyline it could be pretty good.

(Official site)

Sunbaked

If you look outside of my apartment during the afternoon this is what you will see (artist's rendition). Actually, it has been pretty nice outside during the last couple of days which is a very nice change. But when I needed a subject to draw in my newly-found entertainment of vector art the sun and flames came to mind.

Slamball

I had forgotten all about this awesome evolution of basketball:



I wish they still had the games on tv...


I also miss BattleBots.

Insane Orb

Insane Orb is a pong game. A pong game worth playing.
"What?!? You speak crazy talk!" I hear you saying.
No, it is actually a good pong game. Why is it good? Because you have a force field to shoot the ball as well as having gravity wells, falling blocks and even Pac-Man. Oh yes, this game is worth checking out. What's that? You'll get tired of playing quickly? Well just push L and the game will play itself until you are rested. Oh, you should check it out.

Oh snap!

A Maryland resident petitions his senator

June 7, 2006

The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510

Dear Senator Sarbanes:

As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My reasons for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill's pro visions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, what I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years.

I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out. Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.

Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications.

If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illeg al (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent,
Pete McGlaughlin

Speed Disc Golf

Last time a disc golfing was had it was pretty late, so we had to rush to get the game in. One thing that sped things up was to try to finish three holes as quickly as possible:



You can see that Chris and I get off to a clangingly bad start. In the end Nicole won (not pictured).

Tringo

Tringo is a puzzle game where you place Tetris like pieces to make boxes to clear which gives you points. The tricky part about this game is that you only have a limited area to place your pieces and you can not turn the pieces either. It is fun, and it is addictive. A dangerous combination. Check it out.

p.s. My high score so far is 218.

Apollo 11 'UFO' - Buzz Aldrin

Huh, I didn't know this. Buzz Aldrin talks about the 'UFO' which the Apollo 11 crew saw on their way to the moon. He explains why they didn't describe it explicitly to Houston: "...those transmissions would be heard by all sorts of people and who knows what somebody would’ve demanded - we turn back because of aliens, or whatever the reason is." Dr David Baker, senior Apollo scientist: "The possibility that you might encounter aliens in space has to be considered in a very sensible and positive and realistic way; there were a lot of people within the program who went off later and became convinced that UFOs existed." Excerpted from "Apollo 11: The Untold Story". NASA: "I just talked to Buzz Aldrin...and he notes that the quotations were taken out of context and did not convey the intended meaning. After the...crew verified that it...was not the SIV-B upper stage...they concluded that they were probably seeing one of the panels from the separation of the spacecraft from the upper stage. These panels were not tracked from Earth and were likely much closer to the Apollo spacecraft....Apparently all of this discussion about the panels was cut from the broadcast interview, thus giving the impression that they had seen a UFO." - David Morrison, NAI Senior Scientist, 7/26/06

Rumbi Rocks

On Wednesday got ourselves up nice and early (9 or so) and made our way up to Estes Park. There we met Gary and Linda at Ed's Cantina for lunch and then while they mountain biked around the rest of us (Michelle, Chris, Jenette and I) explored Estes. We noticed an old burned out building on a hillside so we checked that out first. It is a easy climb to get up the the house and the view out above Estes is spiffy. After the side trip we got down to business and checked out the stores around town. Not much has changed since last year except that there are more restaurants.

A couple of hours later Gary and Linda caught back up with us and milled around Estes for a bit. Then we all headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park. We stopped at the Alluvial Fans to go check up on how the river is doing (every year we try to make the course of the river change by digging side paths in the sand... I don't think we have much impact). It turns out that the river is still there and things look about the same. On the way back to the cars we played the time old game of "Don't Touch the Ground" where you try to jump from boulder to boulder and get back to the parking lot without touching the ground. For the most part we won.

It was getting too dark to do anything else after the fans so we headed on back to Longmont. Linda needed to go to bed so we dropped her off and the rest of us went to Texas Roadhouse to eat dinner. It was the first time that I have ate there and I would recommend going there if the opportunity arises. Although I think I would suggest getting something different than what got. What was it? One of every appetizer on the menu. That is: ribs, cheese fires, a sweet potato with caramel sauce, an onion blossom, potato skins, a bowl of chili, poppers, chicken strips, and buffalo wings, as well as the free bread. It was good, and actually pretty cheap... but oh man was it a lot of fried food. Next time I'll just get the onion blossom and a regular meal. After dinner we waddled home and went to bed.

Today was Longmont day. We went to the new Hobby Town, which is huge, and then Rumbi for lunch. Rumbi is a Hawaiian place where you get rice bowls as well as other things. I got a teriyaki chicken rice bowl with brown rice and mango tea to drink. I think it cost about $8 and there was more than enough food for two meals. Oh it also was very tasty, I think we all agreed that it was a good place to eat.

After Rumbi Gary and I went off to the Pro Skate to redeem by birthday gift certificate. I ended up buying the gloves that he had picked out for me in the first place, and it cost me $5 plus the gift certificate. They are pretty awesome gloves if I do say so myself. We met back up with the rest of the crew at Borders and then headed to the Cheese Importers to get cheesy. While there we grabbed some dried pasta and a good amount of assorted cheeses to eat for dinner. We then came home made pasta and had a nice long dinner to finish off the day. Tomorrow we will be leaving for Garden in the morning and then on Saturday we will be going to Wichita and the to Rzans bachelor party in Manhattan at night. This is a pretty full week... full of awesome! ^_^

On the third day he ate cherries

I promised you pictures, so pictures you will have.

On Sunday Terry, Lindy and crew as well as my Grandparents, Randy and Emily, Amy and Jonathan come up here for a BBQ. We also had a surprise birthday party for my Grandpa since it will be his birthday soon. Needless to say we had a good time.

Randy brought up Sandy, the amazing dog of wonder (as seen before). This time he was baffled by numbers. I tell ya, that dog has the funniest head expressions.

On Monday we kicked it on down to Casa Bonita, one of my favorite places to eat when I was a kid. My Grandparents, Emily, Amy, and Jonathan joined us.

If you have never been to Casa Bonita you are missing out. You eat your meal by a waterfall where there is live entertainment (albeit mostly kid entertainment). There are caves to explore, games to play, and sopapillas to eat.

Our group spent a good majority of the time in the game room. We found a skeetball machine that was paying out 13 tickets every time you started a game, which was impressive since the max payout for the game was 13 tickets, and average game would yield about three tickets. Since the machine was malfunctioning you didn't get any tickets after the game was over, but that was ok, 13 tickets for a quarter was a pretty good deal. I would have to say that it was closest guarded game machine on the premises until we ran out of coins. :)

After our Mexican Fiesta our crew (Chris, Jenette, Michelle and I, how was soonly joined by my dad) kicked it down to Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom. We got there around 5 and the show started at 7, so we had some time to kill, hence the Denver Public Library.

After a lengthy meal at Wahoo's Fish Taco we made our way back to the show in time to catch the last half of The Only One Who Could Make It. He was a one man band, who brought some cardboard cutouts to fill out the rest of the room on stage. He mainly played guitar, and was pretty good. Jenette got his CD and we just got done listing to it, I approve.

Next was a band called Stars of Track and Field. They had good energy and sounded like a rock version of The Postal Service. I really enjoyed them, but they did not have any CDs to buy. But if you have a chance to hear them give a listen, it is worth it. (They will be playing at the Granada sometime soon.) After Track and Field was The Finals, who I didn't get any good pictures of. They were alright, but compared to the first two group we seen just didn't seem as good as I thought they should have been.

Finally Jupiter Sunrise played. They rocked it out, awesome style, and played a good deal of new songs. Most of the new songs were pretty good, and the old songs that they played were still good even though Amanda played in all of them. It looks like she is fitting into the band petter now, and it looks like they still will be making some good music, even with a female lead singer. We got Jupiter Sunrise to do Kaye as an encore, and during the show Chris (the drummer) thanked us for coming out from Kansas (rock on!). Like I said the show was a good one, and afterwards Chris and Aaron (from the band) asked us if we wanted to go to a diner to eat after they got things packed up. But it was late, and it just wasn't in the cards, so we declined and wished them well along this trip through California and Texas.

Today we woke up bright and early and headed out to Boulder. First on the agenda was the Pearl Street Mall. The Mall is a converted downtown where they have blocked off cars so that you can walk around freely for five or so blocks. There are all sorts of street performers, beggars, and hippies roaming about, half the fun of going it to just watch the wide variety of people that gather there. We were even lucky enough to see the Space Pope (pictured).

After Pearl Street we all headed to the Hippie Food Store for lunch (as I already mentioned). Then we went off to Flat Irons Crossings, a indoor/outdoor mall. We wondered the stores for a good long time until dinner time, for which we met Linda at the California Pizza Kitchen. The food there was alright, but nothing too outstanding, although you can get Italian sodas with your meal (with free refills), so that is a plus. Then after a quick ride in the trunk of Linda's car to where we parked we came home. And now I sleep, for tomorrow is Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. (And I need to be well rested so that I can outrun the wild moose.)

*Note: I wrote this post on Tuesday, but I couldn't get a good enough connection until now to post it. Look for a post about Estes and RMNP tomorrow.

Appalachian State University is HOT HOT HOT

Who is going to go with me to ASU?

Apple Store

Currently I am in the Apple Store in flat Irons Crossings. It is a fairly nice store, a new edition to the mall from last year. Today we went to Boulder and wondered around Pearl Street Mall, then we hunted down some food at the hippie Food Mart (Whole Foods Market), Michelle and I split 2lbs of cherries... not a good idea.
We are going to check out the rest of the mall then eat dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.

I promise to have some pictures up of the last couple of days soon.