George Washington Will Kick You Apart

This video is quite good; I'm not finding the humor as laugh-out-loud funny as the others, but the illustrations are just priceless.

especially where they sing:

He'll save children






but not the British children

A Visual Metaphor for Law School

This is fantastic.

woe is me (but in a good way)

I've started a new HIIT program that is quite viciously kicking my beeheinie. I never even knew I had some of these muscles!!! Currently I'm doing 12 sessions of full-out running for 20 seconds, then walking for 40 seconds, back and forth. Running has never really been my thing, but I'm trying to change that. Maybe next time I'll run like Phoebe just for the fun of it.

Oh how do i love thee...

The Comics Curmudgeon

(and especially this)

(and especially this one too)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Is there anyone else out there who thought this movie was a total let down? I mean, it's horrible. I love Harry Potter more than anything, and will be faithful to the end (eep! so soon upon us), but . . . I've had the movie on for like 20 minutes and haven't paid attention to a single second of it.

Except, I did pay attention to the Beauxbaton girls running up the aisles. I don't know, is spontaneously shooting butterflies from your blouse a typical Veela trait? Because if it is, it sucks.

EDIT: Burn!! I've been informed that not all the Beauxbaton girls are part-Veela, just Fleur. Frankly, that makes the butterfly-shooting suck even more. Someone had to approve that. Geez.

Rumsfeld, as he was meant to be seen

This is quite cute as well.

update: link fixed

Hee

This guy is so cute.

Time to Boogie

That's pretty much how I feel, like, every day. Wooooooo!

might I suggest . . .

Looking for the perfect digital camera? Willing to spend about $300 (the bottom-end price of all decent digital cameras out in the world today)?

I whole-heartedly and enthusiastically suggest the Sony DSC F707, my camera of choice.

I have had ZERO problems with it in my 5-6 years of ownership. It has done nothing but blow me away, producing images so crisp and clean that it continues to surprise and amaze me.

As I said in my Megapixels Schmegapixels post (see below), its 5.4 mp are more than enough, and its lens is too die for. Plus it feels so good to hold, with either one hand or two (and it looks really good when you pull it out; everyone is like, "Oooh, are you a professional photographer?!?!"). The movie capability is nice, as well; in fact, all my "video-ed" assignments for school have been completed using its MPEG feature. I'll soon be posting some videos made with it to this site, as well.

The only drawback? It's an older model, and so the shutterspeed lags a bit. But that's it!! I mean, this baby cost me $1500 back in 2001, and now it's at $300!!! Buy these beautiful creatures before someone realizes that they're giving them away!!

brrr

Yesterday was the coldest I have ever been in my life. Hands down. But it's amazing because I didn't die!!!! When we go out into freezing weather and freak out, stamping around and rushing to get inside, moaning and groaning in discomfort or pain etc, it's because our body, our oldest brain, is trying to save us from impending death. Of course our newer brain realizes there's no impending death, but if those two actually communicated on this issue you'd probably not be so quick to get inside.

Anyway, if you're lacking the Inuit-esque extra bloodvessels in your face/hands/feet, or if you just live in the South, when you venture out into the cold it can be a somewhat traumatic experience. What I realized yesterday is that, even though it's traumatic, I can still stay outside in it, I don't keel over, I don't just die automatically, I don't go into shock, and, well, I live to tell the tale! Which is rather freeing.

My morning bike ride to school:
Temperature: 42, 29 with wind chill (super strong wind yesterday)
Time: 30 minutes
Clothing: a long-sleeved t-shirt, a short sleeved t-shirt over that, a pair of jersey pants, boots, one half-glove (couldn't find the other), helmet. That's it.

I couldn't even my move my fingers when I got to the school. It was very interesting, I suppose that's what it feels like to be paralyzed: there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to move, and yet the body doesn't respond. And then, when it finally does, it's with zero force. Which really sucks when you're having to lock up your bike.

Anyway, lesson learned.

free your mind, and all that

Two extraordinary videos:

Is something alive because we perceive it to be, or because it is? (and here)

All of the world is perfection

the goss!

ooh, there's been a "shake up at the state attorney's office" in my wee town . . . Apparently, a big-time prosecutor was fired because 1) she is going to run for State Attorney in 2008, and 2) because someone at my school (plus his or her professor!) wrote and complained about how horrible Ms Prosecutor was during his or her internship! Now, I myself have written about how horrible I found her, so it is a bit vindicating to know that I'm not alone. I do feel for Ms Prosecutor though, who worked there for over 25 years (do you still get your pension if you've been fired? I don't know these things), and who also was my school's main contact with the State Attorney's office.

Eh, who am I kidding. She bragged about sending over half a dozen men to Death Row, and at a Death Penalty forum justified her actions by using the Bible and her Baptist God. Personally, I really am sorry Ms Prosecutor. Professionally: well, you know.

megapixels, shmegapixels

I had hoped this article about the myth of megapixels would be more complete, but it only just scrapes the surface.

If you are in the market for a new digital camera, completely disregard megapixel count. Seriously. It's a total marketing ploy (akin to cosmetics' claims). Like the article says, look at the lens and shutter speed. I've been using a Sony DSC F707 for the last five years, and only once have I taken a photo at its full 5.4 megapixel count. I stay at about 3.2.

1. A 5.4 megapixel photo is about 30-40MB. Imagine what size a 10 megapixel photo would be like!!! 10 of those would probably equal a GIG! So, to free yourself from constantly uploading those huge photos to your computer, expect to spend an extra $500-1000 on memory sticks, and to change them out every 3-10 photos, and don't lose them, either. Also expect to spend either a lot of time burning them to CDs (maybe 10 to a CD at that size!) or a lot of money buying yourself an extra hard drive for storage.

2. A 5.4 mp photo prints out at about 11 feet by 17 feet. !!!! Do you have that size of a printer laying around the house? Imagine a 10 mp photo! So you reduce the photo size, using either a sophisticated or unsophisticated image editing program. Compressing all those pixels (and in both 5.4 and 10 there are a lot of pixels to squeeze down from 11x17 to 4x5) will generally make your photo look like pixellated, blurry crap. In fact, my 3.2 sometimes causes me headaches when I try to place a photo into Adobe Illustrator, and I have to scale the image down so it's not 80 billion times the size of my canvas. Invariably, I lose a lot of quality.

3. If you like to play with/edit the images later, then higher megapixels would be preferrable, but, again, unless you're professional, you don't need anything over 4. When you edit, save over, etc, you do lose some pixels, which might affect quality, so it's nice to have a larger base amount with which to play. But I'm talking like 40 save-overs or something, not the typical one that you do after a Quick (or long) edit.

i can't get enough of these things . . .

Office Space Re-Cut
Preview for Mike Judge's new psychological thriller

There is a God

"JUSTICE" HAS BEEN CANCELLED!!! WOOOOT!!

New Vocabulary

I've been learning new words lately.

"20 hard" = $20 worth of crackola

"rocket" = some crackola in your pocket, for rhyming purposes; as in, "I put the rocket in my pocket". Not to be confused with a "pocket rocket", which is completely different. (hee)

"blase-sqwahsay" = the equivalent of "blah blah blah", as in, "So she came over to me, sayin 'I need my money right now, where is it, he said you had it, blase-sqwahsay'. . ." I've given it a cumbersome spelling, true, but whatevs.

%$^*&& #$$@!!!!!!!!

Did anyone else hear this on NPR?

"Under [California's] Proposition 83, all convicted sex offenders would be banned from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, and be required to undergo electronic monitoring for life."