Holiday How-to 2006

I know you've all been waiting for it, and here it is. 

For the Wii owners.

Click for some Wii humor. 

Hi.

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything here. As soon as the semester is over, I'll make something spiffy and post it. Until then, I leave you with this.
(Before you click, take a second and consider how the Nintendo Wii could possibly be connected with The Big Lebowski. Then, enjoy.)
[Edit: Netty just insisted, insisted, that I put a disclaimer on this. Ok, there's a little bit of foul language in this video. If such trivialities bother you, you might want to skip it.]
[Edit 2: It has been brought to my attention that the word "trivialities" in the above edit may seem to trivialize certain readers' trivial concerns about language.]

Wii!

Wii! About ten minutes ago, I got the next to last Wii ticket at best buy. I'm about to go in and buy it now. Woot!

Oh, do glow on.

Another cool picture that was on my phone. These were a very fun Wal-Mart cheap aisle purchase. They're basically glowy tinker toys.

Booyah

Guess who beat the Longhorns. Booyah.

Guess who rushed the field after the game. Booyah.

A Vader-ish Halloween

Emphasis on ish. Think of it as Vader's helmet after Luke burns it on Endor.


I have learned much, but I am not a pumpkin-carving Jedi yet.

GrogIslands.com goes live!

Yes, it's true. My fictional nation now has its own website. Why? Because it was free, that's why. Microsoft Office Live is in beta, and they're offering free domain registration and web hosting. Ironically, the freeness comes at a price: as of right now, there's no direct HTML editing capability. So, until they add that feature, or until I somehow acquire MS FrontPage, my site doesn't look very Groggy. Their target customers are small business owners, so everything is set up to create a generic business website (pay attention, Gary). However, I couldn't resist grabbing up grogislands.com for the low, low price of nothing. And despite the limited design capabilities, I think I'm slowly putting together a respectable e-representation of my country. As if I needed yet another way to waste time...

My brains are full of letters.

Today was Nicole's birthday. I made her this:

Jack 'O Lantern Jamboree '06

OMG if you weren't there, you missed quite a show. Evil Fairy was up first, and they rocked...the...house. I mean it was crazy. Somewhere in the middle there was like a six minute drum solo that blew my mind so bad I was afraid I wouldn't be able to listen to the rest of the show. It was that awesome. If you haven't heard E.F. before, you need to check them out. I know they kinda look like an owl when you see them live (see the pic), but they totally rock, fairy style.

Ok, next up: Skineater. Gross name, excellent band. They have this persistently mellow sound, but with a kind of menace behind it. Imagine a zombie playing a blues set with B.B. King, and you have some idea of what Skineater sounds like.





Next up was Stormtrooper. Now, these guys are a good band. Maybe a great band. But you have to completely ignore their lyrics if you want to enjoy them. They're WAY too political, and unless you think living under a galactic imperialist regime sounds like a good time, you won't agree with anything they have to say in the political realm. Luckily, everyone seemed content to ignore the lyrics and soak in those sweet, sweet power chords.


And finally, the headliner. This is the guy we'd all been waiting for: Murray, the Invincible Demonic Skull. He's a one-man show. No band, no instruments, just Murray sitting on a rock. Actually, he doesn't even sing. He just sits up there and prophesies the doom of the earth. And he complains a lot. But somehow it just sounds like music. If nothing else, this is probably a guy you want to be friends with, rather than enemies.


So that's it. If you missed it this year, hope to see you at JackJam '07!



P.S. We (Jenette, Shannon, Me, Nicole, in picture order) carved pumpkins last night.

They may be short, but they have big axes.

By order of the Supreme Brewmaster (me), Grog Islands has officially stationed a unit of dwarves in the Jeeves Mountains! Woo!

Next I'll start working on some Thunderers, because if there's one thing Grog Islands needs, it's more guns.

Episode 2, in (almost) full Color-Vizzion!

I like having a tablet.

If I feel like making it, there may be an Episode 3.

If you can't read the text, click to make it bigger.

Our Weekend, Episode 1

Captain'sLog:

Captain'sLog: another kerplosion! After a night at Hays, and a supposed car repair, we continued the adventure. we got as far as Colby before another battery died. luckily the hockey team was behind us so now we're crammed in with them. It continues!

We're

We're stuck! the shancole-mobile just kerploded on our way to colorado. don't worry tho. the marines are on the way (in the form of amber's parents). Oorah. i'll keep you posted on our little adventure.

I'd like to hit him, too.

If you know who Uwe Boll is, you almost certainly dislike him--he's the guy who's spent the last five or six years taking video games and turning them into flamingly bad movies. House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, and several more to come between now and 2008. These are the movies you see previews for when you're in the theater to see a good movie, and you say 'Holy crap, that looks terrible. I wouldn't even watch that movie to make fun of it.' So I've never seen any of his movies. I hate him simply because he gives a bad name to movies made from video games. Granted, he's not the only one to make a bad video game movie, and in fact, nearly all such attempts fail. The thing is, though, that most directors who make a bad video game movie quit after the first one. But despite the abundant criticism on the internets of nearly every facet of Boll's directing, he still just doesn't get it.
Instead of quitting, or maybe becoming a better director, or trying a different kind of film because he obviously can't do this one, he decided a better approach was to issue an open challenge: any critic who would step up could face Uwe Boll in a boxing ring. I'm not even kidding. Four brave souls stepped up, and here's the video.



So. You challenged them all to a boxing match because you already know how to box? Very noble, Uwe. You deliberately set up an unfair fight. On the other hand, those four guys seem to know more about good movies than you'll ever know, so they find it easy to tear your movies apart. Also an unfair fight.
So, the moral of the story is that we should all stick to what we're good at--like you and boxing. And if you don't like that one, the alternative moral is that you suck.

I updated the + List.

Yep. I did. (I think the '- List' is in Purgatory at the moment.)

Vampire watermelons!

Ok, there are a few things to cover before we get to vampiric fruit. First of all, we went to the K.C. Renaissance Festival last weekend, and I think it just might be the coolest place on earth. I mean, come on. Adults who dress up and pretend to be from another time? Freaking awesome. There was a parade of all the vendors and characters who work there. Here's a video of it; it should give you a sense of the coolness.

[Edit: the video somehow got fubar'd. I'll have to repost it.

There are around 130 shops there, selling such things as armor, weapons, jewelry, clothing, leather goods, and a whole lot of other fun things, most of it handmade. There were several things I kinda-sorta wanted to buy, but what I did actually buy was this most excellent of journals. It seemed like someone in our crew needed to have a log of our adventures/plunderings. And, it's actually just a journal cover, with a generic blank book inside, meaning I can put whatever book I want in it. Keep that point in mind--it'll be an important step in getting us to the aforementioned blood-craving fruit. So anyway, having gone to the coolest place on earth, I naturally want to go again, as does the rest of the crew. They're having a "Phantom's Feaste" in October, which is a dinner theater kind of thing, hosted by Count Dracula. Kind of expensive, but it'd totally be worth it. So I'm thinking of making a vampire hunter costume to wear to it (and it'd just be a cool costume to have anyway). So I'm thinking about it, and I'm trying to figure out what a vampire hunter would carry with him. And it seems to me that he'd have some kind of record of his travels, plus some vampire lore, maybe some ways of killing them, etc. And where would he put such text? In his spiffy leather-bound journal-majig, of course! So I start scouring the internet for vampire stuff to put in my book (because I'm really getting into it at this point) and I'm finding all sorts of interesting stuff. Then I find an article about Gypsy vampire legends, and I learn that not only did they used to believe in vampires, but in vampire fruit. I'm not even kidding. I present to you a sample from the "Vampire pumpkins and watermelons" wiki:

The belief in vampires of plant origin occurs among Gs. [Gypsies] who belong to
the Mosl. faith in KM [Kosovo-Metohija]. According to them there are only two
plants which are regarded as likely to turn into vampires: pumpkins of every
kind and water-melons. And the change takes place when they are 'fighting one
another.' In Podrima and Prizrenski Podgor they consider this transformation
occurs if these vegetables have been kept for more than ten days: then the
gathered pumpkins stir all by themselves and make a sound like 'brrrl, brrrl,
brrrl!' and begin to shake themselves. It is also believed that sometimes a
trace of blood can be seen on the pumpkin, and the Gs. then say it has become a
vampire. These pumpkins and melons go round the houses, stables, and rooms at
night, all by themselves, and do harm to people. But it is thought that they
cannot do great damage to folk, so people are not very afraid of this kind of
vampire.

Fascinating.

Oh, and one last thing: I got a pirate pistol! I got a pirate pistol!
Go eBay!

3 things

It's been awhile since my last post, and not all that much has happened, but here are 3 things:
1. Sunday night, I used my limited Photoshop skillz to turn my little cousin into a Kindergarten Kommando:











2. We (Netty, Aaron, Shannon, and I) saw Snakes on a Plane last Friday, and I have just three words: Best. Movie. Ever. In fact, it was so good that I had my buddy Samuel L. call some of you to let you know. I hope you appreciated it.

3. The fall semester started today. I had one class (Creative Writing Workshop) and taught one (Expository Writing I). It was my first teaching experience ever, and if things go the way they did today, it'll be a pretty good semester.

Set course for spiffiness

Behold, my newest hobby: mapmaking! Woo! I drew this up last night. Actually, it was intended to be a prototype of sorts, just to work out the details, but I thought it looked kinda spiffy when it was done, so I framed it and hung it on the door as motivation for future map projects. Next on the agenda is a more detailed, poster-sized Grog Islands map, and then a giant map of all the Pirate Islands nations. However, before I can work on that one, I need input from all you Pirate Islanders out there. If you have ideas of what your island(s) looks like (shape-wise) or any location names (towns, capital city, mountains, jungles, rivers, bays, stadiums, artichoke fields, etc.), let me know. I don't know how many place names I'll be able to use, as I'll have to keep each nation fairly small to fit them all on the same map. But, if anyone's interested in an individual map of their nation, I could probably do that sometime in the future, too. So, leave your comments here, or, if you want to send an illustration of some sort, you can email it to me. If you don't care one way or the other about your island, tell me that, too, and I'll just make up the details as I go. When the big map's finished, I'll hopefully be able to either have it scanned or just take a picture of it so we can have copies printed for whoever wants one. Now, that's all a ways off, since this mapmaking business takes a while and school's about to start, but that's my plan. I don't know if you're excited, but I am. :)

I'm

I'm not sure if this'll even post (cell phone posts are iffy) but i'll give it a go. i'm at borders in longmont, killing time til Netty, Shannon, and gary get here from the hockey shop. that's all. also, check back for a video post in a day or two.

Update

So, to catch you up on what's going on... The Jupiter Sunrise concert didn't go quite as planned, but that turned out to be a good thing. The power started freaking out while the first band was playing, but we still had a few lights, so JS invited everyone up onto the stage (since there were only twenty-some people who turned out for the show) and they played an acoustic set for us. It was actually a lot more fun than a regular concert, but unfortunately they only got to play three songs before the power company shut off the power completely (a transformer had exploded in the alley). But, since the show was cut short, the band invited everyone out to eat, so we spent a couple hours at Perkins talking mostly to Chris, the drummer, who sat at our table. Good times were had by all. That was Thursday. Friday was spent catching up on sleep in the morning and driving through the afternoon/evening, and when we arrived at Gary & Linda's, some infinitely excellent calzones were waiting for us.Today's first highlight was a lovely afternoon tea, in celebration of the 55th anniversary of Netty's grandparents. I don't usually call things lovely, but, I mean, look at the picture. It was clearly lovely. Following the tea, we changed gears (ha!) and went to the races. Figure 8's, Battle Busses, and a big 'ol turkey leg made for a fun evening. No pics or video of that, unfortunately, because the wankstas don't allow recording devices. However, while we were waiting to meet everyone beforehand, Shannon, Michelle, and I ducked into Furniture Row to get out of the heat, and guess what we found... Robots! A guy named Rod Ford had these awesome sculptures on display, and I really want one. No, I want twelve. Now, for your viewing pleasure, is a video of said robots, set to some rockin' music (points to anyone who can name that tune). Enjoy! Also, if you'd like to buy one of them for that special robot-loving blogger in your life, I can give you Senor Ford's contact info.
(P.S.: Change "today" to "yesterday"...I didn't get this posted last night like I'd planned.)

Grog Islands Militia!

After playing a couple hours of Dawn of War last night with Aaron and Shannon, I decided that having the Grog Islands flag in the game was essential. It logically followed that all the Pirate Islanders who play DoW should have the same. I also imported the Pirate Islands Coalition flag as a banner for co-op games, and designed a new Grog Islands Militia flag. All this kept me up til about 8:30 this morning. Totally worth it.
Also, we're going to the Jupiter Sunrise concert in Lawrence in less than an hour, meaning this'll be the first time I've ever woken up and gone to a concert first thing in the 'morning.' Rather different, that.

If you'll look to your right...

It's the + List! I know you're excited, but try to contain yourself. I just thought my sidebar needed a little spiffening, and this seemed like a fun way to do it. Its counterpart, the '- List' is on its way, but I've been having a little difficulty with the graphic. If I decide I like this format (the sidebar list-->popup format, that is) I might also add a movie review section. I've been thinking about making a new movie blog for a while now, but let's be honest: I can't consistently post on one blog, nevermind two. So we'll see.

Qua?

This is another freaky picture I found in our closet when we moved. I forgot to post it. Here's the other one.

All drinks should glow.

I never want to drink another non-glowing beverage again. We bought these glasses about a year ago, and finally used them today. I filled them with blue jello first, and now I'm drinking green tea out of the big one.




After some extensive interweb hunting for a similarly awesome product, it looks like glowing grog is a distinct possibility for the upcoming Triple-P ('Pirates of the Caribbean' Premier Party).

I like Newegg

If you ever need anything computer-related, go to Newegg.  They are freaking awesome.  We've ordered from them several times in the past, including all our new compy parts, got several really good deals, and everything worked perfectly.  Then we ordered Netty's laptop from there and were equally pleased.  And then, when the firewire card we ordered with the laptop didn't work, they gave me a full refund, no questions asked.  I didn't even have to send back the defective card--they said to just throw it away.  And this wasn't like an "I'll have to check with my supervisor" kind of thing.  This was a "Yeah, it was only an $18 card anyway, and keeping a loyal customer happy is totally worth $18" kind of thing.  Good company.

Who rock da 'chos?

We rock da 'chos! Chicken nachos are good, and I am totally gonna make some right now.

Who's coming with me?

Besides being a movie I'm looking forward to, this is a cool way of distributing the trailer.

It's official!

After 5 hours of moving and around 10 hours of cleaning the old apartment, we're finally moved. Thanks to Shannon, Nicole, Ryan, and Newgen for all the help. We checked out this morning, and it looks like our labors paid off--we won't have to pay anything for cleaning or repairs.

A two-bedroom apartment that isn't located in a construction zone is quite an improvement, let me tell you. I guess we're moving up in the world, if only a little bit.

Also, I decided that it was time to reblogulate, which is quite a task considering that both my design skills and my HTML skills are both near zero. It's not exactly finished at this point. The white outline around the header is a lingering problem, for example, and I've had the same problem when I put a graphic in the sidebar. If anyone out there in Interweb Land has an idea of what I'm doing wrong, let me know.
So far, the little I've done to the 'ol Double B has been described as "scary"--I'm not sure if that's what I was going for, but I’ll take it.

I like the internet.

 Anytime you say, "The internet should have that," it does.  Example: the current version of Yahoo! Messenger am t3h suxxorz, so I wanted an old version.  Ten seconds later I find OldVersion.com.  Their slogan? "Because newer is not always better".  It's like they read my mind.

I have no idea what this is...

...but it's funny and it was in our closet.  Oh, the things you find when you're moving out.

Think about this.

 I was just in the study (i.e. the bathroom) and it occurred to me that "Wal-Mart" is an anagram for "Wart-Mal," meaning "bad wart."  Could it be that Wal-Mart is the blemish on society that some believe it to be?  I can't say for sure, and I don't have time to think about it right now--I have to go to Wal-Mart and get some boxes.

Also, X-Men 3 (technically, X-Men: The Last Stand) is a decent movie.  Not great, but decent, and it ended the trilogy as well as could be expected, considering they changed directors between 2 and 3 (Lincoln may have had questionable taste in facial hair and hattery, but his advice against midstream horse-changing was rock solid).  Die-hard fans may be less than thrilled with the ending.  I wasn't terribly bothered by it, though.  Overall, I'd say it's about an 7.9/10.

Contradiction.

When you keep enough junk sitting around your apartment, enemies eventually run into each other:

Another Zip-tying! Still No Clues To Bandito's Identity!

More Zippings! Culprit Renamed "El Zip-tie Bandito"!

Zip-tie Bandit Strikes Again!

Zip-tie Bandit Strikes KSU Campus!

Modern art or squirrel crime scene?

Construction equipment or battlewagon?

You can't see it very well, but it has a giant circular saw blade for no apparent reason.

This guy is McDonaldsing in style.

Vader suffers Japanese pwnage

These = funny

G4 doing something cool?

I'm just as confused as you are, but their new 'Star Trek 2.0' is really quite entertaining. I'm watching it right now, as a matter of fact. As much as some people love it, the original Star Trek sucked in a lot of ways. G4's presentation of it gives the viewer the ability to discuss/make fun of it with others via the live chat at the bottom of the screen, and there's 'Trek Stats' column on the left side, which keeps track of such things as 'Red Alerts,' 'Hot Alien Women,' and 'dramatic Kirk pauses.' My favorite stat is 'Enterprise Doomed,' which is currently at two (in one episode!). Oh, how fun. There's also 'Trek Facts' on the top of the screen and the 'Spock Market' ticker on the right (in which you trade shares of characters and technology--it actually looks fairly well developed). It's certainly better than G4's other offerings, such as the hopefully-soon-to-be-dead AOTS or, even worse, The Man Show. Is 'Star Trek 2.0' enough to save G4, though? I rather doubt it, so you should enjoy this show while the network is still alive.

A good idea, but...

This is one of those things you wish they just wouldn't put on the news. It's a new defensive system designed to protect armored vehicles from RPG rounds. If it actually works as advertised, it'll be quite useful...except that everyone knows its under development now since it aired on Fox News. I know I'm not helping matters by posting it here, but really, if the three or four of you that actually read my blog will agree to keep quiet, I think we'll be ok.

Mini-fork

Actually, it's a normal-sized fork, but someone stuck it in the ground next to the giant spork on campus.

Best. Library magnet. Ever.

Um...gross.

Stephen Colbert was drinking this on his show tonight. It's a pistachio-flavored soda, from an entire line of nut-flavored sodas called Nutz Sparkling Soda Pop. As you know, I've always warned against the dangers of mixing carbonated beverages with nuts, and once again I've been proven right: Nutz has been discontinued. And I'm guessing that a company called NUTZ Beverages, Inc. doesn't have anything else in the works to keep themselves afloat. (On the plus side, I discovered bevnet.com, a very cool site that reviews all sorts of drinks)

Star Wars Miniatures!

I bought a couple booster packs for the Star Wars Miniatures game over Spring Break, but I haven't been able to play since I don't have the starter set (which comes with the game board). So, instead of ordering a set, I made my own board, and I'm slowly making more walls. Netty and I played a game today, and it's quite fun. It makes me want to buy more models. Here's what it looked like.







And here's the end of the game (I won):



P.S. You're all invited over to play anytime.

Ava, my niece.

It moos!

So we got home earlier this evening, and heard an odd sound coming from the bedroom...

So, the lesson for today is: Barely open window + high winds = mooing window

Miggety Moblog?

New wireless phone w/ camera = me rocking the moblog, and since you have to send a first pic in order to set it up, here's a nice picture of our front door. Enjoy! :)

Ouch

Your brain doesn't hurt enough. Click here and try playing with a 4-dimensional rubik's cube. Ok, it's not actually 4d, it's a theoretical model, showing what it might look like if we could perceive another dimension. But it'll still hurt your brain.

More on Lego Star Wars II

I honestly would've been happy if they'd left the game exactly the same as the first, and just added original trilogy content. But they're actually fixing some of the camera issues, making vehicle levels more fun, letting you make your own custom Lego character (by jumbling up parts of existing characters), and--this is the best part--letting Lego Chewbacca pull people's arms out of their sockets as his special move! That's so cool! There'll be a few other changes as well...here's the full article. IGN says it's due out this fall. Woot!

The Eighth Law Strikes Back!

Lego Star Wars II is on the way! I know a certain me and Aaron who'll be playing this...

I love Havok physics

Here's an example of it being used in Half Life 2:

The response

For the sake of continuity (and because it's also funny), here's the west coast response to Lazy Sunday.

SNL can be funny if they really try

This gives me a little hope for the future of SNL...things like this might keep them alive until they get a good cast again. This is old by a month or two, so you may have seen it, but hey, watch it again because it is freaking amusing.

Sell indie music on iTunes

Hm...I believe I said something about this a few days ago, and Tunecore is a new site that hooks it up. You can distribute your music in iTunes and Rhapsody, with "many more coming soon!" You pay a one-time "delivery fee" of $0.99/service (i.e. iTunes Canada, Japan, U.K., Australia, or Rhapsody--iTunes U.S. is free) and then a storage fee of $7.98/year/album. You get paid per download, but there's a "legal issue" preventing them from listing how much you make--that's the one thing I'm not sure about. I'd want to at least have some idea of what I'd be making before I signed up (not that I have any music I need the world to hear, but you know...). You keep the rights to your songs, of course.
They also offer tools for creating album art, and are planning to offer merchandising options (i.e. t-shirt creation) in the near future. In short, they seem to do everything I've called for. The only question is how negotiable the contract is. Big artists, like the ones on MTV (/gag) will never have any reason to distribute music this way if they're making the same $/song as Cheese Head (R.I.P., no offense Michelle :)). Granted, they're likely to sell more if they're more popular, and should thus earn more money automatically, but at present there's too much greed in the industry for anyone to see that. In any case, check out the site if you're interested, because I'm sure I've left something out.
Oh, and though its mere presence on my blog implies this, I'll go ahead and say it: "I /certify the Awesomeness of this idea."

More evidence for Turpin's Eighth Law of Awesome

The Eighth Law of Awesome states that when Lego and Star Wars are combined, in any medium, awesomeness will result. Previous examples of the 8th law are the Lego "Han Solo frozen in carbonite" model (see earlier post), the supremely cool game called, simply, "Lego Star Wars," and of course the dozens of Star Wars kits made by Lego. Here is yet another illustration.

Country music sucks, but...

Ok, this isn't news at all, but it's new to me, and it illustrates a point I've been making for some time now. Garth Brooks signed an exclusive deal with Walmart to distribute his music. This means no RIAA involvement, because he has no contract with his old label. All artists should do this. Now, I don't expect Walmart, or any other major retail outlet, to be interested in exclusive deals with just any little garage band, but it shouldn't take much to get a deal with iTunes or Yahoo or somesuch. In fact, I think independent deals already exist with iTunes (someone who knows, leave me a comment).
Seriously, widespread distribution is the only function of a record label (that and stealing people's money) and that function is obsolete. I suppose they're also responsible for promoting bands, but the internet (myspace, etc.) makes that function obsolete, too. The RIAA knows this, and they're just trying to grab up as much as they can before artists figure it out, too. Unfortunately, our rights are getting jacked with in the meantime.
And you know, even if the recording industry had an actual purpose, which they don't, they'd still die because they're making the world HATE them. Google's mantra of "do no evil," for example, seems to be a much better business model than the **AA's "do excessive, government-sponsored evil." Heck, Google could be deceiving us all, gradually positioning themselves to take over the world while pacifying us with their nifty little innovations. At the very least, I know they're a company, which means they're only interested in consumer satisfaction insofar as it brings them profit, but hey, at least they pretend to not be jerks. The AA's won't even do that anymore.
Ok, rant over...for now...

Star Wars fans are awesome

This is a near-life-size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite, which is cool by itself. But this one is made of Legos. 10,000 of them.

The guy who made it has made lots of other fun stuff, but my favorite (after the Solo model) is his Jedi Statue of Liberty. :)

Get on this before it gets shut down

If you can't use existing P2P networks for whatever reason (like if they're blocked or if you've given in to RIAA scare tactics), this is a good site. It's useful if you just want to sample an artist before you buy, because the bitrates are fairly low (radio-quality). It's pretty funny, too--most of the files you d/l are .rbs files (whatever the crap those are) and you have to change the extension to .mp3 to make them work. I assume it's their way of staying under the radar, for a while at least. Even so, I suspect it'll be shut down before too long.

How silly

There's a site called FileSwap that lets you upload any file and then get a random file in return. It's kinda fun. I sent this:

And received this:

I suppose if I'd gotten porn or a virus or something, I wouldn't be promoting the site, but as long as no one's mean about it, it's a fun idea. And really, who's mean on the internet?

Your mountain a splode

Here's a webcam of a volcano in Alaska that's about to erupt. When I checked it earlier today, there was nothing going on. Now there's a lot of smoke, but I don't think it's really erupted yet. I find it pretty cool, since I'm not likely to be present for a live viewing of an erupting volcano any time soon.

Also, I just finished my first day of classes. I'm taking Literary Criticism, which looks like it'll be a better class than I was expecting, and History of the English Language, which I'm very much looking forward to. Tomorrow is the Hebrew Bible, taught by the Behlman Factor, which I'm also looking forward to. So now you know.

Sam & Max live!

[I hope many people read this, but let's be honest: this post is basically for Aaron and the Lt.]
Old news, but new to me as of two days ago. After having Sam & Max, Freelance Police cancelled by LucasArts, we all assumed the situation was hopeless, that LA would just sit on the rights and we'd never see another Sam & Max game. Fortunately (I hope) an independent company called Telltale Games has acquired the rights, and will be working with Steve Purcell on some new releases. I don't know how good a company Telltale is (they've only made two other, mediocre-looking games) but as long as Purcell does the writing, it doesn't really matter-- the humor is the real draw of the series, anyway. They'll be releasing episodes, rather than a whole game at once, which, if you ask me, is a pretty spiffy idea. If other companies would release episodic games, it could be a great method for reviving the adventure gaming genre (as long as each episode is <$5 a pop).
No word on release date yet, but there will be some kind of dog and rabbity-thing action coming out this year.

The future is now-ish

I mean, we now have quantum microchips, so we must be getting close to the Big F (*whispers* the F stands for 'future'). Seriously, this is very cool. They can change the quantum state of an ion by changing the spin of its free electron. The reason it kicks binary in the teeth is that while up-spin = 1 and down-spin = 0, it can also exist in both states at once, making it wicked fast. The article says that these new chips will be "more efficient at rock-solid cryptography and mass database searches", and that they're not likely to be used in personal computing. That = silly. For some reason, no one sees beyond the immediate applications of their inventions. I doubt the people making ENIAC thought I'd be playing GTA: San Andreas on a descendant of their giant machine, but that is what I'm about to do.

If only I had $90k...

I saw this on the Science Channel last night. It's called Fogscreen, and it's basically exactly what it sounds like--a screen of fog that you can use with any projector. The water droplets are so small, though, that you don't get wet. The resolution isn't great, of course, but I imagine we'll be seeing these things in places like Colorado Mills pretty soon. I mean, it's a billboard you can walk through, and that = cool. But the best part is that it's also a touchscreen--lasers scan the fog and detect when it's broken, so you can draw on it, and even run compy programs if you don't mind the resolution. It's extremely cool, but very expensive. Anyway, check out the videos.

Holiday pics

Rather than post a few pics here, I just decided to put a flickr badge on my sidebar (----->). Check it out.