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.

World's first video game

We've come a long way since 1960...

Music video...kinda...

This started out as a music video, and I guess technically it still is one... Anyway, Michelle and I made it last night. It's a good example of the kinds of things you can do with The Movies (the game, that is). Enjoy.

I should really go to bed, but...

...just as soon as you find something cool on the internet, you find something better. Or, at least, just as good. In this case, it's Netvibes. Like Protopage, minus the customization options, but plus a few built-in features like weather (though I expect one could simply snag an RSS from weather.com or somesuch and use it in Protopage [Update: one can do so]) and Writely compatiblity, which are somewhat useful. The one selling point for me is the ability to import favorites from your home compy--a nice feature since portable favorites is one of the reasons I might use one or the other of these sites. In the long run, I think Protopage might be the spiffier program (well, not really a program, i guess...), because they're likely to pick up the extra features that Netvibes has. They just came out with a new version, and are already hard at work on the next one, and are taking suggestions. Ok, so now that I've rambled about it for a bit, I've decided that Netvibes isn't all that great...but that import feature sure is nice... In any case, if you're new to the world of Ajax-based internet desktops like I am, now you know of at least two options.
Now I believe I will go to bed [Update: I didn't, but I will now, I swear].

Update

After playing around with Protopage some more, I've officially promoted it from 'somewhat cool' status to 'quite spiffy' status. Here's my page (not at all finished). Go ahead and mess around with it, move things, etc. It won't save any changes. Also, if you make your own, hit the button on my sidebar --> to add my blog to your protopage. :)

Several cool things

So we're in G.C. now for the holiday what-not, and I just decided I need to purge my cool stuff tanks--they're getting a little full. So here you go.

1. Protopage It's basically an online desktop program, more cool than useful, but I like it.
2. iPodderx An excellent podcast RSS reader/player. There might be better programs like it out there, but the pre-subsubscribed feeds are almost all good (most notably Slice of SciFi and This Week in Tech (which is where I heard about Protopage)). We listened to those and others on the way here. No link, b/c they're currently changing the name and redoing the website. There's a contest for the new name, but I'm not sure how you're supposed to enter, since the site is down...
3. On a related note, I've been listening to the Diggnation podcast for the last few months, and I highly recommend it. Kevin Rose makes it relevant and informative, and Alex Albrecht makes it funny (he was the 'new guy' on TSS just before G4 cancelled it). I also recommend Systm and The Broken, also by Revision3, although new episodes of those don't come out very often.

There are many other things in my cool-stuff tanks, but they have to finish processing.

Holiday How-to

This probably took me longer than it was worth, but it's kinda funny...

We are the (second) greatest!

[Edit--Netty posted on the wrong blog. Go here for the post.]

Morgan Freeman is cool

Not only is he a good actor, but he thinks, too! Anyone who wants to get rid of racist 'holidays' like Black History Month are alright in my book. Read this article for more.

This is a cool idea

This is one of the cooler examples of what Christmas Decor, Inc does. They're a professional Christmas decoration company, with franchises all over the country, and they do residential and commercial jobs.

This would be a freaking cool job, especially if you lived somewhere with lots of insanely rich people. Observe:

Rich Guy: Here's $10,000 to decorate my estate.

Me: Score.

Anyway, check out the site. They're a cool company.

Squirrel Attack!

This can't possibly be true....but a bunch of these evil-looking squirrels supposedly killed and ate a dog in Russia. If it is true, then I want my own pack of killer squirrels, too. Perhaps Russia could market trained assassin squirrels as anti-terrorism weapons--maybe they could flush out that Osama guy... Russia could get out of debt, we could get rid of an enemy. It's win-win.

(here's the full story)

Yar!

If you're a Pirates fan, you'll be interested to know that the trailer for the second movie is out. If you're not a fan, go rent the first one, thoroughly enjoy it, and then wait eagerly with the rest of us for the next one...and then the third one.

Pezmaster

I was browsing through my latest referrers to my blog, and I discovered that there's a link to good 'ol Bliggety Blog! from the PezHQ website. I was thoroughly amused. :)

I hate OU, but this is pretty cool...

OU’s athletic director ran this full-page ad in the Mercury. If you don’t have a magnifying glass, it says: “We have been fortunate to compete with and against your great teams. In victory or defeat, you epitomized all of the characteristics of a true champion. You have rightfully earned the respect of many for your extraordinary record of achievement. More importantly, you have inspired countless people through your unwavering commitment to something bigger than any one person ... the team. You have profoundly improved the great game of college football. Wildcat fans, today we blend our chorus of Boomer Sooner with your Wildcat Victory as we rise in unison to salute your players, your great coach, Bill Snyder, and his family, for all you have accomplished together.” And if you feel the need, you can get a full-size, readable PDF of the ad here.

Don't worry, I'm still alive.

Location: KSU Union, enjoying a Taco Bell quesadilla
Yes, despite my having not posted for quite awhile, I am still alive and, for the most part, well. Our Thanksgiving break started last Wednesday and we headed for the big G.C. for T-Day dinner on Saturday. And if you know your days of the week, I'm sure you've figured out that we had several days of goofing around at our disposal. We used then to do mostly movie-related things: Netty and Michelle (and at least one of her friends) went to see Rent. They said it was good and that I would have hated it-- which I already knew. Then Netty and I went to see Jarhead, which was a decent movie, probably an 8.4/10. It was more about the people than about the war, and though I like traditional war movies, this was a nice change. We also hit up the Hastings and got mad cheap used DVD's (see video post, forthcoming). Saturday was the big meal-- turkey for us carnivores and lesser foods for that one silly herbivore. And, of course, there was the usual family fun, highlighted by Grandma Fuller playing Hitz on the Gamecube. (see video, forthcoming; and on Shannon's blog as well, I'm sure).
We also got to hang out with the Andy factor at his spiffy house, where we chatted around a fire in his spiffy firebowl, which is in his spiffy backyard. It was, as you may have guessed, pretty all-around spiffy.
The trip home is also worth mentioning, as we were driving between (and through, to some extent) two giant storm systems-- one producing a minor blizzard, the other producing tornadoes. I'll post a screenshot of the radar when I'm on Big Compy.
And now I must leave you, for I have a conference with a professor in 10 minutes. I almost forgot.

A deep image

Think about it.

 

Ha ha!

Well, all Pirate Islands nations in NationStates have ceased to exist except for the invincible Grog Islands! I win!

Old school

[Location: KSU Union]

A post you read instead of watch? "Where's the 'play' button?" you ask. I know, non-video posts are *so* two weeks ago. But I figured I should post something now since I may die by Friday...I have way too much crap to do. I have to finish one essay, revise a second one, have a conference with a visiting author about a third one, write a 2-page reading response to a poem, and study for a midterm. And it's all due/happening on Friday. Ugh. Hopefully I survive it all, because after that we're headed west to do some visitin'.
On the positive side, I'm sure there'll be a video post when we get back. :)

Highlights from last weekend

Video Camera!

Hooray! We finally got a digital video camera, and here's my first video post from it. It's me, Netty, and Michelle discussing such things as omelettes, shoes, and God.

Hawking strikes again

From an email I got from Amazon: "In the 17 years since the publication of "A Brief History of Time," new data from particle physics and observational astronomy have shed light on efforts to find a Grand Unified Theory of Everything that Hawking and Mlodinow use to enhance and update their answers to basic questions about the universe: where it's going and how it began." Spiffy, eh? Not so sure on the title, though--"A Briefer History of Time"? Moderately clever, I suppose. It's due out on the 27th. If you preorder, you can save 34% (no, I don't work for Amazon, I just want my readers to save a cool 850 pennies).

New trig?

There's a new math in town! I know, I know...there's always a new math in town. But this one could actually be useful for you and me. And unlike other new maths, this one's actually easier than the old one. Trig without a calculator? Sign me up. Click here for a sample chapter (PDF alert).
Thanks to Slashdot for the info.

Labor Day weekend? More like Warhammer weekend...

Yes, I'm aware of my silliness.
We're in Lawrence! We ate at 75th St. Brewery (or somesuch number) earlier with Newgen and Andrea, and it was quite good. Now we're at Silent K's apartment getting ready to play some Warhammer. I'll let you know how that goes...

I decree it!

/decree no more football games during the hottest part of the freaking day!

Best bad movie ever? Mayhap...

So I signed up for Netflix the other day, and what's the first movie I got?  Why, the 1979 classic The Warriors, of course.  It’s a street-gang movie, and the guys who came up with Necromunda must have had this movie in mind.  The setting is entirely different (this takes place in NYC) but the variety and…um… flamboyance of the gangs in the game has to have been inspired by this movie.  I can’t believe I haven’t seen it until now.

The basic premise is this: there’s a huge meeting of all the major gangs in the city, and everyone comes unarmed.  Someone, of course, sneaks a gun in and kills Cyrus, the leader who called the meeting to unite the gangs, and a small gang called The Warriors is blamed.  They then have to fight their way home through enemy territory.  Not a terribly complex plot, I know, and the acting is Terrible (yes, the capital T is called for), but it’s very entertaining.  I have to recommend it.

And here’s some more Warriors info.  There’s a game based on the movie coming out around the end of the year (by Rockstar, so it should be good), and MTV is supposedly working on a remake.  Now that I’m an official fan of the original movie, I’m worried about MTV being involved with it, since they produce crap.  (And yes, there is a difference between ‘70s B-movie crap and modern MTV crap.)  But really, they’re probably the only ones who’d ever do it anyway, so go for it MTV.  You gave me Napoleon Dynamite, a movie that shouldn’t be funny but is.  Maybe you can give me a ‘modernized’, politically correct remake that I should hate but won’t.  You’ll get my $7 either way, because if you make it, I can’t not see it.

A letter...

...from Mark Twain to Andrew Carnegie, during Carnegie's last years of life when he was giving away his fortune:

You seem to be in prosperity. Could you lend an admirer a dollar & a half to buy a hymn-book with? God will bless you. I feel it. I know it. P.S. Don't send the hymn-book, send the money.

I find that hilarious.

War!

Location: Chipotle
So the plan was to play a gigantimus (7000+)Warhammer battle with Newgen. And eventually we'll do just that, but setting up took so long (about an hour and a half) that we already need food. The table looks really cool, though, with all the units out. It'll be a long (but fun) battle.

Water from the Heavens?

No go on the books. I\'m either taking a lit class with no books (a-duh) or the professor is opposed to the Varnopoly and put in an order at Claflin. No big deal--I won\'t need anything today anyway.
It\'s turning out to be a pleasant day, weather-wise. It\'s raining a bit and there\'s a nice breeze at times, so it\'s not as hot as it has been. I\'ve had worse first days of class.

Gettin\' edumacated some more...

Location: KSU Union
First post of the new school year! Actually, despite what that exclamation point implies, I\'m not terribly excited about it. But it\'s all good...I have 0 classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays! (That exclamation point *does* apply.) I\'m taking \'Graduate Studies in English\'--the most generically-named of my classes--which I just got out of. It\'ll be an alright class--mostly discussion. Later on today I have \'Advanced Creative Nonfiction\', (which I\'d hoped to take as an undergrad but couldn\'t) and \'Readings in American Literature, 1945-1964.\' And then I go home and start reading. I figure since I\'m a grad student now, I should actually do *all* of the reading for my classes, as opposed to the 50-60% I did before... And speaking of which, I have to go pick up a couple more books downstairs.

My Spidey sense is tingling...

So we\'re at Panera, and I came back from the bathroom and sat down, and Netty started staring at a spot just above my right shoulder. Why? Because there was a tiny spider dangling from a strand connected to my ear. I laughed.

Updated?

Updating my blog? I must be at Chipotle! So let\'s see...what have I been doing these past few days? Well, I finished painting my Slann Mage-Priest, for one...he looks freaking cool, and if I can ever get a good pic, I\'ll post it. Now I have to get to work on his guards. Also, I\'ve started working on some river scenery to play with. Hopefully it\'ll be done before the upcoming Battle Royale when Newgen comes up.
In other news, I\'m now enrolled in 2 grad classes, I have the department head looking for a research assistantship for me, and it sounds like I\'ll have my tutoring job back, if I want it. And now the rest of the rolling crew is here, so I can eat!

Ah, Carnitas...taco filling of the gods.

Yes, my travels have once again brought me to Chipotle. As foretold in the prophecy, we played Warhammer, which was fun. Good (Shannon\'s High Elves and my Lizardmen) barely defeated evil (Nicole\'s undead and Netty\'s goblins). And I bought some Temple Guard to protect my Uber-Priest (when I finish painting him :) ). So now I have stuff to paint. Spifftacular!

Welcome to my Sunday

Six hours of sleep? Check. Soup at Panera? Check. Now all we need is some Warhammer at P&C, and we\'ll be doing this day right.

Hey hey.

I just can\'t resist posting when I have wifi (we\'re at Radina\'s). Not much to say, but I do have some Warhammer news. I was looking for a hardcover version of the rulebook, and one of the Patch & Crow\'s guys had one he was willing to trade for my normal one. AND he has over 6000 points of Empire models, mostly unassembled and unpainted, that he\'s looking to sell. And I just happen to be interested in Empire, since I\'m almost done with Lizardmen. I still don\'t know what his name is, but he\'s my new go-to guy. :)

\'Tis Friday!

Not that that means much...in summer, every day is Friday!
We (Us, Shancole, Michelle, and R^Hizonda) are Paneraing today. Soon we will do other fun things, like flingalinging.

Home!

We got in from Colorado at exactly 4:15 this morning. That's a long drive. Anyhoo, I"ll post some pics just as soon as it sounds fun to do so (maybe later today).

Also, something I just came across: in their continuing effort to catalogue/reference everything in existance, Google has now added THE FREAKING MOON to their maps. Those crazy kids.

Finally! Wireless that works!

Woulda been posting more, but haven\'t been able to get wireless to work anywhere. Thanks to Valley of the Wind in Estes Park for having accessible (but slow) wireless! So yeah, we\'re in Estes, about to head up the mountain for some pictacular fun. Oh, and I bought a hat. Ajuaa!

Boulder

Yeah, so I forgot to mention that we\'re taking another trip. Now we\'re in Colorado. In Boulder, on Pearl Street, in the Trident Cafe, to be exact. We\'re going to wander around here, eat lunch, then get hippie food at Whole Foods for dinner. That\'s the plan, at least. I\'ll put up some pics tonight, if I remember.

Zoomy

Of all the things I've found today, this is the zoomiest. It's starts 10 million light years away from the Milky Way and incrementally zooms in all the way to the quarks making up a proton in a leaf, and back again if you like. Quite fun, whichever direction you decide to go.

Details

Here's a little more info on this little videoblogging adventure I'm on. For some reason, I can't get the video to play in IE, but it works in Firefox. It's having some kind of problem downloading the Quicktime plugin (which is silly b/c i already have it) so it won't work in IE, at least not on my compy. If some other IE user out there would be so kind as to test it for me and drop a comment, I'd appreciate it.
Since Putfile.com wanked out (and wasn't that great to begin with) I moved to Ourmedia.com, which uses archve.org to host media. The interface is easy and they're very careful to protect your copyright to your work. It feels like they're putting some effort into it, but it's still in the early stages. Thus, the first graphic and video I uploaded worked with no problems, but the second graphic I tried still isn't available, 9 hours after I uploaded it. So it is perhaps not the most reliable, yet. Google's doing video now, but with their own stupid player...it's still a possibility, though. Something to look into.
If you like the idea of putting video on your blog, and want to save yourself the time it'd take to figure it out (assuming you're not an HTML deity), go here, paste the code into your template, make sure the link field in Blogger is turned on, and you're good to go, assuming you've found a suitable host for your video. The whole thing should take you about five minutes. Of course, you can mess around with it--change the size of the video frame, for example, which I plan to do on mine--but that's the basic template. And so I say 'thank you' toSvein Høier and Jon Hoem, and my desire for a video camera increases tenfold.

Video blog test

Well, I'm up a lot later than I meant to be...but I got it working! (This is the 4th of July video Netty linked to from her blog a while back.) Now that that's done, all I need is a good video camera. :D

Day 4, post 1

Dad finished his cookie run and we all met him at Galligaskin\'s, the oldest sub shop in Texas, or so they say. It\'s pretty good. I\'m enjoying a salami and provolone sandwich. After this, we\'re going to a place called \'House of Blades,\' which can only be cool...

Day 3

We didn't do as much roaming around today, but we had a good time. The day started when Lyndo woke us up to say that Audri and Ava were coming over. We put some chicken on the grill and Dad got back from his daily cookie-run just in time to eat lunch with us. During lunch, Dad got a call from the Kia dealership, saying that they'd found Lyndo's car. [Background: Lyndo got a used Isuzu Rodeo recently from the Kia place. When the 'Check Engine' light came on a few days ago, they took it back to the dealership to have 'em fix it. Turns out they send a lot of their work to a place down the street to be fixed, and that's what they did with this one. Well somehow, in the process of driving it six or so blocks, it 'got lost.' They actually called and said 'Yeah, um...we can't find your car...' Insane.] So all six of us (Lyndo, Dad, Audri, Ava, Netty, and I) crammed into Audri's car so we could go pick it up and then go visit Mom at work. Here's what the backseat looked like...kinda illegal, I know...



So we got to the dealership and Dad and I rode with Lyndo while the rest of the crew stayed in Audri's car. And thus began our next little adventure... The Rodeo is a manual transmission, and though she knew how to drive it, she was, shall we say, less than confident. So there were a couple of close calls, but no accidents. We did have to go by the shop that had fixed the problem, though, because they apparently hadn't reset the 'check engine' light after they'd fixed it. I'm glad it worked out that way, because I then got to see the slogan on their front door, which made me laugh.



After that little detour, we finally caught up with the other half of the group and went in to say hi to my Mom at work, and she introduced us to some of her coworker/friends. The place she works just happens to be right around the corner from the TCBY where Lyndo's boyfriend works (his name is Chris, which just isn't working out for me). So we stopped in there, too, and he gave us the frozen yogurt hookup. But now that I think about it, we had to pay for it, so it wasn't really a hookup at all... Dad amused us all, and embarassed Chris, by asking him if his intentions toward Lyndi were honorable. I believe the answer was yes.


We hurried home after that so Netty could finish and upload her homework by 6:00 (during which time I took a nap), and then we went to buy food for dinner. While it was on the grill, Ava and I fed some ducks, and after dinner, Lyndo's rollin' crew showed up for a bit and abducted her. The rest of us played with Ava in the sandbox for a bit, got our frog points for the day, and then watched The Incredibles (which I can now recommend--it was pretty good). And now I blog.

Day 2

All sorts of fun today. First, at my request, we went to Trader's Village, which is a freaking huge flea market type thing. We didn't even get through a quarter of it, though, before the heat (in the 90's) got to us. We did get a few things: mom got a roll of material for curtains, Lyndo got a giant paper fan to put on her wall, and dad bought a couple knives--one for him and one for me. I'd like to go back there sometime when it's not so hot. It's one of the weirdest places I've ever been; full of things like this monkey-type object, and this 'computer store.'

After that, we went to see Ed & Michelle (my aunt and uncle) and their new baby, Jake. We got a tour of their house, which is mucho spiffo, and then, when mom mentioned that they were trying to teach Lyndo to play poker the other night, Ed was quite eager to break out his poker set. We played a few hands of Texas Hold 'em, and Ed took all our chips. But it was fun.



Then we were hungry, so we pointed the car toward downtown Fort Worth, but it was ridiculously busy (some kind of low-rider festival going on...I'm not even kidding) so we ended up at the nearby Fort Worth Stockyards (a touristy kind of area, quite fun). We ate at Giovanni's, a pizza/pasta place that Lyndo goes to after concerts at 'The Door,' which is just around the corner. The food was actually quite good, but the real reason to go there is the owner. That guy is awesome, but very hard to understand.

After food, we walked around a bit and checked out the new riverwalk area that's 'in development' right now. We got our turtle points for the day, and Lyndo and I had an alien egg fight. And then we headed back to base. Much fun was had today.

T^3, d1, p2

Well, we're here. And my family has a computer good enough for me to post with! I would have posted on the way here, but you know Love's...stingy with their wireless internet...doesn't sound like love to me... Anyhoo, we got to see the new house, and it's pretty spiffy. I'll post some pics tomorrow or so. And now, off to bed.

The Tejas Trip, Day 1, Post 1

As all good trips do, this one begins at Pizza Hut, where we\'re about to enjoy some cheesesticks with the Shannon and Nicole Factor.
...30 minutes later...
Those were good. But we only ate about half of \'em.
Now that we\'ve fueled ourselves, we\'ll fuel our car and then go!

Because Jedi eat cereal, too.

Free in a box of Corn Pops, my very own lightspoon. And just think: with a little modding, it could become a lightspork...

Sometimes you feel like a hazelnut...

Hazelnut chocolate chip bagel, hazelnut cream cheese, hazelnut coffee...my HN points are gonna be maxed out after this. I\'m at Panera, waiting for Aaron\'s interview to end (his car/transformer is dead, so i drove him). I stopped by the old EB Games before this, was appalled once again at the rack of DVD\'s they have OUTSIDE IN THE SUN, and picked up \'Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance\' for 6 bucks. (It was a \'Buried Treasure\' on G4, for those who are down.)
The problem now is that I\'m mostly awake, but I know I\'ll be quite tired later on--4.5 hours doesn\'t usually cut it for me. But we shall see...

More fun with slang

From the same website, I discovered that we've kifed the word 'kife.' We use it to mean 'steal,' but here's what they say: Definition for Kife: Something that is insufficient or unpleasurable. Example: This cereal is kife." Our definition is much more fun.

Clutch!

Apparently someone else uses that word, too! "Definition for Clutch: A good thing or when something works out. Example: I checked out that resturant last night, it was clutch."

Isn't that clutch?

F'real

Thanks to the old AOTS, I've been exposed to new funniness, and you can be, too. This is a group of college guys and gals called Prangstgrup, and they do some pretty crazy things and film them. I believe AOTS described it as "like Jackass, but smart," and that's about right. I recommend the 'Lecture Musical.' It's the kind of thing you always wish someone would do on the last day of class, but no one ever does. I've only watched a few others, and they're not all at the humor level as 'Lecture Musical,' but even with the ones that aren't that funny, you can imagine them being hilarious if you actually saw someone doing such things in person (such as 'Reenactment Club'). Go check it out. *

Besides that bit of internetty goodness, I have only one other thing to share: my NationStates country, Grog Islands, has sucessfully combined pirates and ninjas! Grog Islands is a pirate haven, meaning that, of course, it's full of pirates. And when they inevitably produce offspring, and those kids become teenagers, many of them are recruited into our child-ninja assassin unit. Meaning that they're both pirates and ninjas! (The description of my country calls them 'shirt ninjas', which I can only assume is a typo, since 'short ninjas' makes much more sense.) This may not end the eternal struggle, but it does show that the two aren't mutually exclusive.


*As always, you retain the right to not 'check it out,' as well.

Possible bad news for the U.S.?

Europe has recently accomplished an increase of .07% of unique hits on this blog. Disastrous! I know it doesn't seem all that bad, but that's how they work--lots of little, barely noticable gains, but before you know it, they roll up on you and then it's all over. Sure, right now you have 84.51%, but if we don't keep an eye on the competition, calamity could ensue. A 70% buffer zone may not be enough. Let's shore up our defenses a little, shall we, U.S.?

Good job, Europe.

See? I knew you could do it! You got that number up from 10.35% to 10.42%! Fantastic! Now let's keep it up.

Fun with Photoshop

Not a great job, but it was fun. This is my Lizardman temple (and skinks in the foreground), with Shannon's High Elf archers on top, and the background is Tikal in Guatemala.

Hey U.S.

Hey America, guess what I heard... Rumor has it that Europe thinks it can generate more unique hits on my blog than the U.S. You gonna stand there and take that?

A challenge to Europe.

I just discovered that a little over 10% of unique hits come from Europe. I have to tell you, European Readers, that I think you can do better. Get out there and tell your friends about my random, useless crap! Tell them that my R,UC is better than that of others! I know that if we all work together, we can get that number up!

Ok, ok.

I've been getting a lot of complaints, and most of them boil down to this: "Chris, I like Pac-Man, but it's just too big. Help me!" Well, the best I can do is to send you here. I hope this helps.

What's better than peeling a potato?

Why, peeling an e-tato, of course! (My best time's 1 min 10 sec)

Guerra de los Mundos

Or, if you like, War of the Worlds. We (and Shannon) saw it today. And here's the deal with it: as a movie, it's pretty good. As a theater experience, it's quite good. It's the kind of thing that just wouldn't work as well if you were watching it at home. So there you go. I can't really say much more w/o spoilers, so I'll save the rest til ya'll've* had a chance to watch it.

Oh, and just so you're up to speed on my life (as I know you like to be), the movie was sandwiched between a Panera visit (their new portobello mushroom and roasted garlic bisque is tasty) and a disc-golfing (check Aaron's blog in 2 weeks for the score). And now Netty's making dough, cuz we's making pizza! Summer on, folks. Summer on.

*Double contraction. Booyah.

So funny

About those shirts. I know they just put English on clothes because they think it looks cool, but really, wouldn't you want to have some idea of what it says? Anyway, that's not the really funny part. The really funny part is that someone does know what these shirts mean. If they were just randomly picking words, they wouldn't make the little bit of sense that they do. So there must be someone who has the best job in the world--picking things to put on Japanese shirts. Now that I think about it, that may be the job I was born for...

Why I must NEVER go to Japan:

Well, besides the risk of being strapped to a battery of soda-bottle rockets, the other problem is that I wouldn't have any money for food, hotel, etc. Why? Because I'd be spending it all on clothes! Doesn't sound like me, does it? But when you have options like this, how can you not?

Such as this one.

This seems logical.

True.dat

This one's my favorite.

Oh Asia...

I've been saying it forever: Asia's different. They have completely different ideas than we do. Like this one.

Band Math

(F-e1) + (B-e2) = J
F>L>B>J
F>= $3.00

[F = The Famed
B = Stuck on Broadway
L = Ludo
J = Anything But Joey
e1 = the new guy(s) in The Famed
e2 = the new guy(s) in Stuck on Broadway]

So that's what I thought of the show. I don't think there's anything contradictory in there...

A happy Lawrence Day to all!

As most good days do, this one started with a bit of Galaxies, and then we headed out with a carload of Michelle, Shannon, Nicole, Netty, and me. And a can of corn. First stop: Pochi, where I got misself an orange smoothie with \'tapioca pearls,\' or as I call them, \'ammunition\' (launching them through a straw works very well :) ). Now we\'re at Free State Brewery, drinking and looking at menus while we wait for the arrival of Newgen--who\'s still at work--and Aaron--who\'s on his way from Manhattan w/ Amber.
After this, it\'s on to the show, which, as I understand it, will consist of The Famed and Stuck on Broadway opening for Ludo. Am I interested in any of these bands? Not particularly. But it should still be a good time. The first two bands, for those who don\'t know, are the two halves of a band I never really cared for. If they split along the correct fault lines, though, there\'s a good chance I\'ll like one or the other. And either way, I\'ve been curious to see what the Granada is like inside.
For now I shall enjoy cheddar ale soup and wild mushroom ravioli to the tunes of Skriggety-Skruff and the Good Times. (Ok, I don\'t know what their name is, but there is a live band here). Mayhap I\'ll post from the concert if that\'s possible.

Coldstone

Location: coldstone (duh), poaching internet from Java
My rolling crew and I are enjoying iced creams in 4 delicious flavors: cake batter w/ oreos (netty), mint w/ chocolate shavings (nicole), peach w/ gummi bears (michelle and shannon), and coffee w/ heath bar(me). Mmmmm. This after a rousing game of Chipotle-fueled disc golf. Quite a day.

I'd play it...

Ah, Internet-ville. Full of so many kooky people doing so many absurd things. But some of these things are also entertaining. Like the guy who's working on a Homestar Runner mod of Half Life. Unfortunately, the project seems to have died (probably had something to do w/ the release of Half Life 2), but the dude posted on his forum a few days ago, saying he'd like to finish it. Not that anyone's playing the original Half Life anymore... At the very least, though, you should check out the player models. It's interesting to see how he made 3-D 'sense' of the nonsensically-shaped HR characters (there's even a Trogdor model). There was some talk of making the mod open-source, so mayhap I can get my hands on those models in the near future and 3DS them to the Max.

Link from a killa

Here's something interesting... I was going through my journal, and I found a web address I'd written down over a year ago in my American English class. The one taught by Professor Murray, who was recently convicted of stabbing his wife... It's just a silly little linguistics test, to see if we could determine how some new words were added to the language. It's not all that interesting, but a guy who had most likely killed someone a few months earlier gave it to me, which is interesting in a weird, weird, very weird way. Enjoy. (Note: when I typed in the address, I got 404'd!, so the site is brought to you courtesy of archive.org, one of the most useful/cool websites out there.)

My Life

Episode 1138

A Trivial Pursuit

Wings! Tuesday has again come to the Galaxy, and our hero
must now meet his destiny at BUFFALO WILD WINGS. He
woke up late in the afternoon, and most likely won't eat anything
until wing-a-lings. The resulting hunger will make potato wedges
unavoidable.

Meanwhile, his wife Netty has traveled to the remote planet of
Stone House, where she leads a rescue mission to save the
babies there from an evil foe known only as Laura B.

In the chaos of the moment, one thing seems clear: there will
be wings and trivia very soon. And based on recent patterns,
SUPER TENNIS seems likely as well...

2 cool things

Hello, and welcome to today's episode of 2 Cool Things. First up, something I didn't have time to post before the weekend's G.C. excursion: the 1-hour Will Wright talk from this year's GDC, in which he talks about his new, mind-bogglingly awesome game, Spore. That guy's a freaking genious.
And Thing 2: the Cloud Harp project, in which a laser/telescope setup is used to generate music from clouds. The samples they have on the site actually kinda sound the way they should. Ensign--Cool Factor 5...engage.

In other news...

For you pirate fans out there, while I was browsing the IMDb, I came across *Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (set to come out next year) and Pirates 3 (set to come out in '07). The fun part is that they're filming at the same time, so we'll get more pirates two years in a row! There is a movie coming out in 2006 called 'Return of the Ninja', so for those keeping track, if we start in 2003 when the original 'Pirates' came out and go on into the forseeable future, it looks like the score is Pirates: 3 Ninjas: 1 Go Pirates!

*Before you click on the links, there are a couple of minor spoilers if you look at the 'credited cast' section, so if you don't want to know who the new characters will be, don't look.

We saw Batman Begins last night! And now I'm reviewing it!

I've been waiting for this one since I heard about it a year or so ago. Actually, I've been waiting much longer than that-- since Joel Schumacher hijacked the franchise and drove it straight into the ground, I've been hoping someone would come along to resurrect it. The first two Batmans (Batmen?) were good-- a little over the top at times, but in a controlled and purposeful way. When it comes to Burton, you either love him or hate him. I love him--he tends to make movies that stand out from all the other crap out there, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He did a good job with Batman, and so did Keaton. Then Warner Brothers apparently decided that success wasn't for them, and did their best to piss off Batman fans around the world (myself included). But that's all in the past. Christopher Nolan has taken over, and WB seems to have stayed out of his way. (Nolan directed Memento--if you haven't seen it, do so immediately.)

The new Batman...well...makes sense. He's believable. He's a real person in a real world. He uses real gadgets and a real car (well...not real, but you know what I mean). We get the backstory, and we get to understand why he does what he does (though if you've read Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" graphic novel, you're already familiar with much of this). The story's as much about Bruce Wayne as it is about Batman, which is as it should be. Christian Bale plays a great Batman--he's moody and emotional, seems constantly on the verge of a breakdown, and you always wonder whether he's going to stay true to the 'good guy' code or give in to his instincts for revenge. And the rest of the cast is crazy-go-nuts as well. Michael Caine is the perfect replacement Alfred, possibly better than the last (though I did really like that guy...). And I always like Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman. The girl (because yes, there's always a girl), played by Katie Holmes was really the only weakness. She's an ok actress and all, but she looks 16 and I didn't buy her as an Assistant D.A. I wouldn't say she brought the film down, but a little more thought could have gone into the casting for this part (they considered Natalie Portman, who most likely would have been a better choice). Oh, and the music was quite good. But really, how could it not be? When you combine the talents of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, you can't go wrong. It wasn't quite as exciting as Danny Elfman's original Batman score, but it really fit the movie-- a little darker, a little more serious.

In general, it's just much less 'cartoony' than other comic-book movies like Spiderman, etc. In fact, a lot of people are calling this the best comic-book movie ever. In my opinion it's second to Sin City (hm...another Frank Miller job...are we sensing a trend here?) but a very close second. That's just what I think, though. Go see it for yourself and let me know what you think--methinks you'll like it--and then we'll wait together for the sequel(s), already in the works.

Oh, and because some giving things overall scores is fun: 9.5/10

Location: my futon, at home

My wireless router works! (shh...don't tell k-state) And as an added bonus, i got Y! messenger to work on Little Compy! For those who use it, my away-from-home I.D. is wireless_chris_turpin. I'll use it when I'm either away from home or using Big Compy for other things. Hooray for wireless!

The rest of our little day-trip...

So, after Free State we walked over to Signs of Life--a coffeehouse/bookstore/art gallery-- and got our browse on. And a couple of us ordered coffee. I got something called a Jumping Monkey, which is coffee blended with a banana and, I believe, chocolate. It was quite good. A lot better than you're thinking. :) Didn't actually taste very banana-y--the combination of coffee and banana makes a kind of nutty flavor. But the texture was weird...very thick. On the way out, a girl recommended that I try it on ice. Next time, Random Person, next time.
So after our monkey adventures we went to Newgen's and played Anti-Grav for a bit. That's a fun game. Hopefully more developers will pick up on the Eye-Toy potential with the PS3 (or whatever the new version of Eye-Toy is called). Anyhoo, we headed home after that, leaving Newgen free to sleep. The drive home was rainy, but so was nearly all of yesterday.
I'm sure Netty'll have pics up on her blog in the next day or two.