bigoh

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:33:08 GMT

My 3 week trip to Japan to visit Schwab won't be happening after all. With my newly freed up vacation time I'm now planning to visit Indianapolis and see all you dudes (and dudette) from college again some time next year. Due to random work scheduling crap it will probably be near May or June. I'll send an actual email at some point in the near future when I am planning more seriously, but consider yourselves FOREWARNED.

Puzzle Hunt Practice Session

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:35:36 GMT

RDJ: "Fuck all of you, it's on Google Moon Map!"

It Begins

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:28:53 GMT

I've been taking a break from sci-fi and fantasy books since about September of last year and I retroactively decided it was for a year. Since in a few weeks I'm going to start reading sci-fi and fantasy again I've decided to end my hiatus with a bang.

Finnegan's Wake and two reading guides should arrive from Amazon.com on Thursday or Friday. I'll have finished up my last two library books by the end of the weekend. Then begins my life or death struggle with the Wake. If I survive I'll report back how it was.

Wowio

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 07:16:04 GMT

I'm interested in signing up for Wowio, but the whole "you need to give us either a scan of your driver's license or your credit card info to sign up" thing is very offputting.

Does anyone know if this thing is a scam or not? I asked Google but it was useless.

Business Proposal

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:28:45 GMT

Anyone want to go in on starting a cat food company based in China named "Curiosity"?

(disclaimer: someone probably made that joke first, but I made it up during work today)

New "High"

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:21 GMT

Today's Diesel Sweeties contains a Venn diagram as part of its joke. This diagram was popular with the readers of said comic and will be made into a shirt. I saw an error in the diagram so I emailed the creator.

I have emailed the creator of a web comic about Venn diagram correctness. For my next trick I will email my slash Star Trek: Voyager fan fiction to Richard Stallman.

Software Engineering Tip Of The Day!

Tue, 15 May 2007 08:10:11 GMT

Just because a DWORD data field is the same size as a pointer, don't use it as a pointer to a random array just because you can.

Seriously.

Robot Jacko Strikes!

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:27:33 GMT

According this gossip column Michael Jackson is going to start doing concerts in Vegas year round, just like a variety of other washed up musical acts. To promote this concert he is going to build a 50 foot tall laser shooting robot of himself in Las Vegas. The concert itself will have "a stage set of a giant audience-interactive video game with human cyborgs controlled by the audience."

Oh, please, please, please let this thing get built.

Pop Music >> Force of Arms

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 07:06:37 GMT

That loud noise you heard was Vladimir Lenin's body EXPLODING. Enjoy Russia's entry for Eurovision this year.

Disclaimer: That song isn't actually good.

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 04:42:13 GMT

WHY DID YOU RESIGN?!

Dudes and dudettes, it isn't that tough

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:11:05 GMT

There are CliffsNotes for The Giver. Yes, that book that won the Newbury Medal which you probably read in middle school.

I'll admit that I refer to the CliffsNotes for each chapter of Ulysses after reading the chapter and then thinking about it a little while, but seriously, The Giver? Come on.

Then again.... I take it back. We should get someone on making fucking CliffsNotes for TV guide. Clearly America at large can't handle first grade spelling, let alone 6th grade reading comprehension.

Japan Trifecta (Comic Book Edition)

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:21:07 GMT

The best written comic book I've read in years is Nijigahara Holograph. (Just do a quick Google for it and you'll find it)

In the spirit of my current frenzy of Japan pop culture related posts it's a manga not yet released in the US. It's an insane nonlinear hallucinatory mystery tragedy. It's 300 pages that I read straight through, and plan to reread tomorrow night to more fully investigate its secrets.

0xFCAF isn't the only one who can post about TV shows he's watching

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 04:39:13 GMT

I bought the Neon Genesis Platinum Edition DVD's and I'm finally getting around to rewatching the series on them. The last 5 episodes all have added scenes, at least 2 of which are extraordinarily useful to understanding the show.

However, the main thing I'm noticing while rewatching Eva is how FAST the episodes are. I'm used to the more leisurely 43 minute American drama pace now, so how much gooey story goodness they pack into 23 minutes of an anime episode is freaking me out. Specifically, if you have access to recordings of Eva go and watch "The Day Tokyo-3 Stood Still" (episode 11) and watch how aggressively they cut between scenes and how pared down the episode is whilst still retaining all of the awesome.

Related anecdote, having only watched Cowboy Bebop once Guy remembered "Ballad of Fallen Angels" (the church fight) as being a 2 part episode, but it turns out that the writers are just badasses.

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:37:19 GMT

Paprika (trailer) is the new movie by Satoshi Kon, who made Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent, and Millennium Actress. MP3's from the Paprika soundtrack are available from the composer's web site and I've been rocking out to "The girl in Byakkoya - White Tiger Field" for the past couple of days.

Office Move Lighting Adventure

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:02:52 GMT

I am new in a new office at work today. When I arrived, the lights didn't turn on due to a bulb being burned out, so I submitted a service request online.

A while later, one of the people who was in this office before me came by to pick up some crap they had left behind. She mentioned that the lights had randomly stopped working a few months ago, so she and her office mate had bought a lamp without making a service request or telling anyone about their lighting issue.

Two hours after submitting the service request some dudes from facilities had replaced the burned out bulb and the lights now work. I like my solution better.

Still alive, still nerdy

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:12:15 GMT

I've been on a comics kick of late and reread Preacher and Lone Wolf and Cub. However, I've recently found a comic whose greatness makes wonder why I've been wasting time on anything else. Behold, The Enchanted Office the comic about how the new user interface in Office 2007 is going to personally save your company, marriage, and baby.

Washington is worse than Illinois in exactly one way

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:10:38 GMT

Definition: An "incest loophole" is when laws are structured so that if a person sexually abuses a child related to them instead of being charged with a serious felony like sexual assault they are instead charged with incest which is often a misdemeanor. Instead of jail time or loss of custody they often get parole and don't lose custody of the children they abused.

Many states such as New York, California, and Illinois are passing laws that explicitly disallow charges of incest if one of the people involved is a minor. It turns out that not only does Washington have an incest loophole, it has an explicit incest loophole which says that if the person doing the assaulting had a preexisting relationship with the victim and it is likely that counseling will help the perpetrator then they are charged with a far less serious crime.

So, basically, the Washington state legislature says that as long as someone befriends children BEFORE they sexually assault them they can just talk it out instead of going to jail.

RELEVANT LINK

LA Times Article about "Girls Gone Wild" Founder

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 23:31:42 GMT

This article about the founder of the "Girl's Gone Wild" media empire is really good, is the k-th most horrifying thing I've ever read, and is a unsettling portrait of a deeply disturbed individual. He's basically an especially jacked up version of Tom Cruise's character from Magnolia only without the personal growth and with at least one instance of probably committing rape.

Most recent proof that 70's British Fantasy damages your ability to communicate with others

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 21:08:48 GMT

The Wikipedia article on garden path sentences includes the example sentence "The horse raced past the barn fell." The point of this sentence is that once you reach the word "fell" you realize that the underlying grammatical structure of the sentence is different than you thought it was and you spend a long time trying to figure out what is up.

I on the other hand, immediately interpreted it as "the horse raced past the evil barn" and didn't understand why the sentence was tricky at all until after the article explicitly pointed it out.

EDIT: Yes, my brain did try to tell me a sentence fragment was a sentence.

New Computer

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:49:13 GMT

I finally got around to replacing my computer after 4 years. I don't want to be one of those dudes who won't shut up about how much his new |30><0|2 |20><0|2Z, but Fear looks very nice.

Speaking of Fear, to break in my new computer I'm alternating between playing Call of Cthulhu and Fear. If you've even been near me when I watch a horror movie you know that me playing these games implies I am spending my free time doing little fear jumps in my room alone due to imaginary little girls. So, if you feel a little depressed or unhappy right now just cheer yourself up by remembering that at least YOU aren't paying money for the privilege of being pwned by children who aren't even really there.

I wonder if I can continue a continued "meme"?

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:48:50 GMT

From aethercowboy

Once you are tagged, you must guess at the question which inspired each of the following answers, answer them yourself, and tag 6 more people.

1. I squirted my friend in the face with a super soaker from point blank range because he made me mad, and then played it off as an accident.
2. Nobody likes to be deprotagenized.
3. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
4. Deer in Nara, Japan
5. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds " - Ralph Waldo Emerson (the only smart thing he ever said)

I tag ilmtitan, mge, werd14142, imprimis5, matthewschwab, and kyledgoss, trying for some maximal spread here.

Awesome Settlers Heuristic

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:42:00 GMT

A player's "p score" is the number of building materials used by the three little pigs the player produces divided by 3. For example, if a player makes only brick his or her p score is 1/3, but if a player makes wheat, brick, and wood his or her p score is 1.

Now that you're all pro Settlers players, let's focus on RAPEBEAR!

Cool Writing Project

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 18:30:59 GMT

Greg Stolze who wrote "Unknown Armies" and is awesome has launched a new writing project on his web page.

The synopsis (for those of you too awesome to follow links) is this. The process used to write Greg Stolze's new novel will be a follows.
1) People email suggestions for what the book should contain to him.
2) He writes 10k words using some those suggestions as part of the book
3) He posts 5k words which you can read for free because he loves you
4) After he gets $500 total via donations he releases the next 5k words for free to everyone
5) He writes 5k additional words continuing the book, he incorporates additional suggestions from the original submissions
6) Do steps 4 - 5 until book is finished or people stop donating

He is currently on step 1, so if there was ever something you really wanted in a book this is your chance to (maybe) have your dreams come true!

I am pretty pumped about this project because
1) I like Greg Stolze's work
2) I like the publishing model he is using
3) I like strange books, and this book is probably going to be pretty darn strange

Currently Alive

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:49:42 GMT

I am back from Japan and not dead. Exciting trip moments:
1) Being inside the world's largest wooden building with a giant bronze statue of Buddha.
2) Karaoke with a J-friend of Schwab's (female). (I was as bad as you fear)
3) Feeding fruit to wild monkeys in a monkey park in Kyoto
4) Maid cafe in Akihabara (sadly not that strange, it was a cafe where the waitress happened to dress like a maid and was SUPER polite)
5) Eating horse sashimi with a ginger soy sauce in a tatami room overlooking a scenic temple garden
6) many Castles, Shrines, Temples, etc.
7) the Tokyo Tower view of Tokyo smog
8) Noticing that all the J-boys dress like J-girls (they both have long hair hair, purses, and pink shirts)

Bounding All Other Blogs Above

The Adventure Begins!! (soon)

Wed, 17 May 2006 22:33:10 GMT

You may remember me mentioning that my friend matthewschwab is studying abroad in exotic Japan. Well, Friday morning I will be heading off to Japan myself to do some J-sightseeing with Schwab and another student from Schwab's study abroad program. Our plans are to hit up (in order) the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto triangle, Nagasaki, Tokyo, and then the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto triangle again. The only activity we have explicitly planned is a visit to the Studio Ghibli museum since I had to buy the tickets in advance to ensure getting them. Given how much fun I had just running around Glasgow and playing it by ear I expect that running around Japan will be at least as amusing. I will post an exciting update chronicling my Asian Adventures upon my triumphant return to the States.