Where's Phoenix?

I hate the end of the quarter.

There are a lot of fun-sounding things going on, and I can't go to any of them, because I have to finish my quarter-long-projects.

:-(

Sasquatch

Just got back from the Squatch. Most of the caravan had tickets for Sat+Sun, so it was decided to camp out in the desert near George. And since there were so many people going, some of us had to go early and save camping spots. So, we headed out on Thursday.

I haven't gone camping for over a decade. It was a lot of fun. Wait, did I say fun? It was a lot of rain. A whole lot. It pretty much rained constantly except for Saturday, when it got crazy hot.

I was there to see Dan the Automator. He was playing with Crudo, whom I'd never heard of, but they weren't bad. And that introduced me to Butterscotch, who is ridiculously talented.

Modest Mouse played later and REM followed, but the rain had returned. In fact, we got rained out of most of REM's performance, and I love REM.

The following day, most people had had so much fun that they sold their Sunday tickets and came back early. ^_^ They didn't need any more fun. They had reached a saturation point for fun (and/or rain). Good times!

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera (although I did remember to charge the batteries for it. My old-timers is selective), so no pics yet. Hopefully I'll pick some up from the other adventurers.

(also, it was a tad more expensive than I anticipated. I had my credit card declined today for the first time. But that's OK, since I was just buying food, and how much of that stuff do you really need anyway?)

Professionals

I saw an ad just now for Professional Singles, a matchmaking site.

I know that the name means singles who are professionals, but my first thought was that they were targeting people who had been single for so long that they turned pro.

Not quite right

So I dump out a bag of skittles so I can sort them by color (as I am known to do), and I think something looks a bit off...



And then I spot it.



I don't know what the hell it is, but it ain't no skittle. It's hard, like a pebble. Hmm.

Procrastination

So, my computer crashed and I lost my work around 3am. I started over (hey, it was all fresh in my mind, right?) and worked for about another three hours when I realized I was so tired I couldn't type properly anymore. So I thought I would pop home, take a short power-nap, get up re-energized and polish my paper. Right?

Well, I got a little too optimistic, and set my alarm so early* that I slept through it, and then slept through class.

I am reminded of Lev's "Tales of mere existence", specifically the Procrastination episode:
Show/Hide

(although Saturday is similar)

*I needed to wake up early because I had to get a lot of stuff done.

THINGS I DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE

Hey, GUESS WHAT JUST HAPPENED!!

KDE crashed!

I lost all the work I had open! Including FOUR FUCKING PAGES OF NOTES FOR MY FIVE PAGE PAPER DUE TODAY!

So, instead of being ALMOST DONE I now get to START OVER FROM THE BEGINNING!

Hey, have I mentioned that it's now past THREE IN THE MORNING?

YAY!!

Linux Is For Supervillains

This animation is OLD, but it came up again at work today (my co-workers haven't seen it, which makes me a sad panda).



Unfortunately, the video comes from a time long ago, when autoplay was still OK and flash videos didn't have to play well with others. So I'm not putting it on the front page, but hiding it here.

"The Office" original Japanese version

(From the SNL sketch)

Kosuke's Adventure

From an e-mail I received today:

Cheney, Wash. -

Eastern Washington University is pleased to announce that Dr. Kosuke Imamura has been selected as the 2008 Fosseen-Kusaka Distinguished Professorship Fellow by Mukogawa Women's University in Nishinomiya, Japan.

Imamura, who is an assistant professor in Eastern's College of Science, Health and Engineering, was selected from a pool of several faculty applicants at the conclusion of the fall 2007 open nomination process.

Imamura will travel to Japan in early June where he will be hosted by the Mukogawa Women's University (MWU) Informatics Department. During his one-week stay, he will be introduced to Japanese culture, deliver lectures in his academic field to MWU students and interact with his Japanese faculty colleagues.

Eastern is proud to offer this unique opportunity in association with Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute (MFWI), a branch campus of Mukogawa Women's University, as part of the ongoing partnership between Eastern Washington University and its Japanese counterparts. Eastern has worked with MFWI to foster international exchange and strengthen professional ties between our institutions since 1994.

To emphasize, in case you missed it, they are going to fly Kosuke Imamura (a Japanese gentleman) to Japan where he will (among other things) be introduced to Japanese culture. I'm sure he is looking forward to this exciting once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about a distant land.

Ri-damn-diculous SMW Auto-run

So, there are these auto-run hacked levels of Super Mario World, which if you haven't seen yet, GIYF. (Check the via link if you can't find any)

But never have I seen a level like this. This is an 11-minute monster, which in addition to being completely automatic, incorporates sound effects from the actions of the game synchronized with the music. You really have to see (and hear) it to believe it.


(via)

Comic Book Clinton

I was reading an old copy of Supreme and who should make a guest appearance but none other than Hillary Clinton.


(From "Supreme: The Return", issue #1)

Porn for girls, by girls

Finally, a website that knows what girls truly want. (sfw?)

Things younger than Republican Presidential candidate John McCain

Pre-Taped Call In Show

This came up at the Thomas/Morah Birthday Bonanza (and Bowling), but I had never seen it. Well, now I have. ^_^

From the 3rd season of Mr. Show.

WTF, in concentrated video form.

*Warning*, this video will make your head explode.
I guarantee it.



(via)

Hobbit-holes, Part Three

Here are the promised pictures from the Fallout-Shelter tour:


Approaching the entrance..


Closer...


That same entrance, seen from the inside.


Above us is a skylight...


...which can be closed.


To the right of the entrance is an empty wall.


To the left of the entrance is the kitchen-wall.


Left from the kitchen-wall is the entrance to the bathroom.


Through the bathroom door, on the right is a washer/dryer and bathroom sink (on left is toilet and bathtub).

It's basically one big round room, with a small separated bathroom.

Hey, you know what gives you a better spatial orientation than static pictures? A video!

Anyone remember Thunderbirds?

Here's a commercial featuring the resident genius, Brains.

Characters I don't Resemble, part II

If you haven't seen me this week, I've shaved off the beard (see Bloomsday pic, below).

But not the moustache.

It's such a different look for me. I've heard a half-dozen or so characters that I supposedly look like. By far the most common is:

Mario*. Maybe, if I wore overalls and white gloves, I might see it.

In second place is:

Wyatt Earp. Maybe I'll put on a cowboy hat and go to the gun range. I have a black suit, I just need a vest and pocket watch to go with it.

Tied for third are:

Yosemite Sam and Earl Hickey. I think Yosemite's is too long, Earl's too short.

I think most of it is that I have a moustache now, and these are people with moustaches. I don't personally think I look like any of them.

(* Mario picture is from here)

Characters I don't Resemble, part I

I've been told (while clean-shaven) that I look a bit like Hugh Laurie, aka Dr. House.



I just don't see it.

Hobbit-holes, Part Two

It's ON.

I'm scheduled to go check out the hobbit-hole (er, I don't really like that name. Can we call it the fall-out shelter?) TOMORROW @ 1:15pm. If you guys want to come see it, you're all welcome. ^_^

(Sorry I couldn't give more notice)

After Bloomsday

Today was Bloomsday. Here are my thoughts:

Ow. Ouch. Ow. Eeee. Ouch. Oooh. Ouch. Ow.


From Left to Right: Phoenix, Phoenix's belly, Becca, Zach

I'm Ready For Bed

Gotta get up early for Bloomsday tomorrow morning.

However, it appears that some young couple is having sex* on the grass behind Dryden, aka, right outside my window.

I guess I'll go hang out in the lounge for a while and give them some privacy.


* Or possibly the gentleman is moving heavy objects while the lady enthusiastically agrees?

Cheerful thought for the day

Out there in the Milky Way galaxy there's a lot of stars. Occasionally one goes nova, rarely supernova, as they explode. There is a sphere of very active radiation leaving such stars. If one went off in our vicinity, up to twenty light years away, say, all higher forms on Earth would be sterilised, at least.

More worrying still are gamma-ray bursters. Gamma-rays are very short wavelength electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays. When astronomers managed to develop instruments that could detect such radiation , and put them in satellites, they discovered that two or three times per day the Earth is illuminated by an intense burst of gamma-rays coming from somewhere out in space.

So far, all the gamma-ray bursters we've seen are a long, long distance away. But one could light up anywhere. If a pair of neutron stars collapsed on to each other within a hundred light years of Earth, life might survive in the deep seas and the deepest rocks, but the rest of our planet would be dead.

And we wouldn't even see it coming.

Asteroids and comets give you a bit of notice. We have the capability, given a year's run-up time, to tackle small Earth-crossing asteroids now. We can see them coming and plot their arrival. But gamma-rays are electromagnetic: they travel at the speed of light. They could be on their way now: we couldn't know. As soon as we did know, we and our technology would be dead.

Terry Pratchett, The Science Of Discworld, p258-9, abridged.

Although the title is "The Science Of Discworld", it's really the science of our world. And it's fascinating. ^_^

Eggbeaters

It is curious that the strongest believers in the soul tend to be people who denigrate material things; yet they then turn their own philosophy on its head by insisting that when an evident process -- life -- comes to an end, there has to be a thing that continues. No. When a process stops, it's no longer 'there'. When you stop beating an egg, there isn't some pseudo-material essence-of-eggbeater that passes on to something else. You just aren't turning the handle any more.

Terry Pratchett, The Science Of Discworld, p187.

Moving on up...er, down.

So, the time has (almost) come for me to move out of my home.

I have lived in Dryden longer than any other place in my life. Is that sad? I can't tell.

Most people who live in Dryden consider it a home away from home. While I was in Japan, Dryden was the home I was away from.

But it's time to move on. Mostly because it's expensive to live here, and I'm going broke paying for my education.

In my quest for an off-campus housing solution, a friend of mine recommended this place:



That's right. It's a hobbit-hole.