ICO 2

I found a clip from the sequel to ICO. I really enjoyed ICO. This clip looks promising. I can only hope.

Blow Your Mind

Yesterday my friend Richard was cursing my name all day. I made him think of something that he couldn't stop thinking about. I gave him a thought that acted as a mental virus. Taking up all of his cranial processing power.

I noticed that he was reading Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number. He told me some stuff that he had read in the book. It reminded me of an interesting fact.

I pointed out to Richard that the relationship between a circle's radius and its circumference is linear. No big deal, C = Pi*R*2. I guess it was the way that I pointed it out. I said, "Say you have a basketball with a rope tightly wrapped around its equator. Then you take that rope and add 100 inches to its length. Now the rope has almost 16 inches extra between it and the basket ball. Here's the part that Richard couldn't get his mind around. Take the earth and wrap a rope around its equator. It's a really big rope. Now add 100 inches to the length of the rope. If you went around the earth placing sticks in the ground to make the rope taught again guess the length of those sticks. Almost 16 inches."

Damage From Hurricane Frances

My family in Florida is starting to get their power back. The damage photos are starting to come. It looks like, out of my family, my poppy ( grandfather ) got the worst of the damage. At first glance this photo doesn't look too terrible. Just some pine needles, but if you look in the background , that lake is his street and driveway. You can see the mailbox is now a good place to tie off your dinghy.

Here is his water front property from a different angle.

Some tiles on his roof blew off. Water leaked into and soaked the bedroom.

This is his back yard. All flooded, but it looks like his neighbor had even more tiles ripped from his roof.

and finally a branch fell through his patio screen.

Alternate Captions

I think this picture is well suited to alternate captions:

• "Damn, did anyone see where I left my glowsticks"
• "Hi, I'm Dr D. Your new gynecologist. Open up and say meow."
• "Damn SARS! You know, I heard a bastard cat started that whole mess."
• "I'm black, I'm white... Tee hee. Whoo! Can you tell me where the little boy's room is?"

Any more?

A to Z

I don't know why but this slogan just popped into my head. "Visit Arizona we've got everything from A to Z!" Perhaps the Arizona Tourism Authority could make some commercials. Someone get on that. Chop chop, let's go!

Very Merry Unlabor Day to Me

I spent the whole weekend working on my kitchen. Got a lot done. Yet, not even close to being complete. As you can see Dude was lending a paw with the sanding.

I got some appliances ordered from Carlson's. That guy's commercials are funny. I spent less than I intended and got more. Got a dishwasher, range and range hood. I got a range hood with a microwave, even though I hate microwaves. It was only $50 more than a good hood without the microwave.

Back in 2001 I ordered a refrigerator from Carlson's. Sears wanted to charge me $300 more for the same model. Sears also lied to me about the rebates for energy star models, because most of the refrigerators they had out on the floor were not energy star. The sales reps wouldn't take me seriously there either. I hate Sears.

I put the new appliances on a three week delay. I just hope I have the time to finish he rest of the kitchen before they get here.

New Riddle

I made this one up while I was waking up this morning.

Theodore Plake graduated from medical school with the highest honors. He got a job as a radiologist in the finest Boston hospital. He made lots of money. His life was going well. Until six months later when he was called into the Chief of Staff's office.

"Dr. Plake I need to talk to you about your car. I just saw your license plate this morning. I feel that as a doctor representing this hospital you can not have such pornographic filth adorning your car. You must get a new plate or you will be fired."

The chief of staff was very conservative and Theodore thought he was just over reacting.

"I like my license plate and I don't see anything wrong with it. It represents me. I won't change it."

"You are fired!"

What did the uptight chief of staff read on Theodore's license plate that got him so angry? The answer is in the comments area. Please don't go there until you have a solid guess.

Crazy Drunk Drivers

I took Chad and Amanda to the airport so they could vacation in Costa Rica. On my way back starting three block south of Ocean Park on Lincoln there was a road block. Before I even got up to the critical portion there were lots of signs reading, "Please stop for sobriety test ahead." What kind of stupid nonsense is that? I quickly turned and went one block over and up to Ocean Park on that road. I avoided the whole thing. I wasn't drunk. I don't even drink at all, but I didn't want to be bothered by the wait. Correct me if I am wrong, but your brain doesn't fall out of your ear when you are drunk. I mean if anyone came upon this blockade who had had anything to drink they would turn and go around it, right? So the whole thing is just an annoying public display. Makes me kind of mad. What a waste of money. They had like thirty officers out there.

Turn on your Heart Light

Today I heard some news that moved my heart towards a thumpin. Seems that an article in New Scientist is stirring up some excitement. Can you imagine if we actually did find a signal from beings on another planet?

Turns out to be mostly hype. Everyone got all exited for no real reason. It was fun for a minute but if you read what the Planetary Society has to say you'll land safely back on earth.

I've heard it mentioned several times that scientists expect that the broadcast will be on the main frequency at which the universe's most common element, hydrogen, absorbs and emits energy. That aliens would choose to advertise their presence using this frequency because it's the interstellar communication equivalent to running ads during the superbowl. It was in Contact and they mention it in this article. My questions are: Do we advertise our presence using this frequency? Do we send out this signal to outer space? How powerful is our broadcast? Where do we send it from? Would it be detectable from anywhere or just from particular regions of space?

Time Lapse

A while ago I said that I wanted to build a time lapse camera to shoot a video of my investment property being constructed. Then I found a company who provides that service. Ox Blue is kind of high priced, but it provides a time lapse camera and automatic website updates for the project. You can view your project as it moves along. They have sample videos that show the construction projects from start to finish in two or three minutes. Turns out that time lapse construction videos are not that exciting. They are probably useful as a marketing tool. Getting people excited for investing in your next project. Definitely not worth constructing a camera and the hasle of setting it up and maintaining it in Arizona.

I just found out that I work with a guy who is really into time lapse photograpy. James Polk (he is related to the 11th president) has a short in the Palm Springs Short Film Festival. The movie is called Navajo Dream 3. He is a tech artist at Sony Studios Santa Monica.