twenty years later...

It's amazing how some things stay the same after so long. Just a couple of minutes ago I popped a game into my nintendo (wii) and it didn't play. How did I fix it? I ejected it and blew on the game. Popped it back in and voila. Trick still works like a charm. If only everything were still that easy to fix...

Cuban banned for life from Olympics

My wife and I were wandering through nbcolympics.com today and I ran across a photo of a good kick to the face. I thought it was during a tae kwon do sparring match but as I looked closer, I noticed that one of the competitors had his helmet in his hand (not a good place for it to be) instead of on his face. I looked at my wife and told her, "That's a stupid place for your helmet to be, pointing to the competitor's hand. Then I said, "The helmet goes there," pointing to his head. Then I looked a little closer and noticed that the other competitor (the one that got kicked) had a tie on. So I thought to myself that's a stupid uniform to be sparring in. Then I looked at the heading. It looks like the Cuban competitor didn't quite like the way the match turned out. The other "competitor" (the one with the tie on) was actually a ref! The Cuban competitor will probably be expelled from the Olympics for life and most likely, his coach will be too. You can see the pictures and read the story here. The photo I saw was the third one shown in the gallery.

Merry Christmas

What's that in the picture you ask? Why that, my friend, is a kringle - a traditional Danish pastry. I told a couple of people that I was going to Racine and they all said that I had to go and get a kringle while I was here so that's what I did today. The one I had was cream cheese flavored. It was pretty good. Tasted like a Danish. It was HUGE! It cost me about $5 and was about the size of a serving platter. Well, that was my random post.

synth in

I get a complimentary copy of USA Today delivered to my room every morning and as I perused its contents I came across an article about photosynth, microsoft's new program. basically, what it does is it takes all the pictures you upload about a single subject and figures where the photographer is in relationship to the pictuer and basically stitches all the phots together for you. now this in itself is nothing new. what makes photosynth different is that you can zoom in on each of the components of the pictures. that's not explaining it too well so here's another description in microsoft's own words:

"First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now there is Photosynth, a new service available at photosynth.com that will change the way you experience and share photos.

You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark. With a nothing more than digital camera and some inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your synth is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos."

The article mentions that this is just a beta program so there are improvements on the way. Some things that they are looking into fixing:

1) privacy - right now, any 'synth' you upload can be seen by everybody

2) it takes a while to upload the pictures and when you click to zoom in, some computers may take a while for the zoomed image to come into focus.

Check out the page if you have some free time. Kinda interesting.

deadly, clean service with a smile

I think that if I were to run a ninja training school I would send initiates to be trained as hotel maids to see if they have what it takes to be a ninja. Think about it, have you ever caught a hotel maid in your room? Yet when you leave the room and come back, it's spotless. I've only caught a maid in my room once (it takes a ninja after all) since I've been in Racine. So there you go. If you're in need of a silent assassin, put a want ad out for a hotel maid. In other news, I only had to work till one today so I've been spending time wondering around town. I've made stops at Toys R Us and Barnes and Nobles (got the zombie survival guide) and am now in the hotel recuping.

Packing

Gonna be spending most of the day packing and doing fun stuff. Gotta get ready for my trip to Racine, WI tomorrow. Work's sending me there to train some of their employees so they gave me a per diem check. I call it my GPS check (that's what I'm buying with it later today...well, and food). If you're interested, you can follow me on twitter.

Twitted

Well, I've caught up with the rest of the world and joined twitter.

Experiment

Here's a fun experiment to try sometime: Walk up to somebody (preferable someone you know) and start a conversation with them in whisper then walk up to somebody else and start a conversation with them by yelling. Do they do the same? Here's an even funner thing to try: Walk up to somebody and start a conversation with them in whisper and randomly yell parts of your sentence. Let me know how that goes if you decide to try this.

NEW Discovery Channel Commericial - Boom De Yada!

kinda catchy

I like food.

I like food. Plain and simple. I like food. And not in the way that normal people like food. I like food in a way that is entirely immersive. I enjoy food with all five senses. I enjoy the way it's presented, the way it smells, the way it sounds as you chew on it, the way it feels, and especially the way it tastes as each particle of food is caressed on each taste bud. I even enjoy events where food is the main event. For instance, tonight, my wife and I are going to a dinner theatre at the local high school. The school is nationally recognized for it's cullinary program and they're supposed to have some gourmet-y food there tonight. Then tomorrow, we're going to a Japanese steakhouse with some students from Japan. So I implore you, gentle reader, do not simply devour your food. Enjoy it.

I'll see you in Hell

Yes folks, the pope, in his infinite wisdom, has deemed it worthy to spend his time devising a list of yet more sins. From the people that brought you the 10 commandments of good driving, it's the new and revised 7 new sins! Trying to lose weight? Why not participate in creating poverty? In just two months, you too, can be watching the pounds melt away in Dante's ninth circle. Join now and we'll throw in a free one hour session of one-on-one personal training with the dark prince himself. In case you're wondering, the 7 new sins are:

1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control

2. "Morally dubious'' experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

Happy National Grammar Day!

As I am sure that you are all aware, today is National Grammar Day so go out and have a grammarific day!

Now if only Roy would come out of retirement...

For those of you that haven't heard, the Avs have reaquired both Adam Foote and Peter Forsberg! This announcement came just several days after they reactivated Joe Sakic. You can read about it here. My master plan's all coming to fruition... Now to talk Roy into un-retiring...

15 Most Annoying Video Game Characters

Ever wonder what the 15 most annoying video game characters were? Well, we did too so we went to this link and found out. Read #1 and tell me you didn't do the same thing to that character. I know I did at least a hundred times..."Me too"(says Andrea).

Who gilded the lilies?

I was watching TV earlier today and heard the host make reference to gilding the lilies which of course, got me to thinking about where the phrase came from. I'll save you the trouble of googling it. According to takeourword.com, the phrase comes from Shakespeare's King John. "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily...is wasteful and ridiculous excess." Just a fun little phrase so I thought I'd blog it.

verbophiles unite!

If you love the english language like I do, you should check this site out. It's a radio program about language questions and grammar. You can also get podcasts from the site.

the story so far...

well things have been pretty busy since the last time I posted. where to start...well let's start with Christmas. we went to Andrea's extended family for Christmas eve. Christmas day we (Andrea and I) opened our gifts.

She got me a Roomba (we call it Roombie). after that, we went to Andrea's mom's and exchanged gifts. then we left for Garden and spent Christmas day with my family. after we got back from Christmas, we received a package.




it was our Aerogarden! we paid for most of our wedding and Christmas gifts with a credit card and we saved up enough points for it. go us! we also finally started working on our bathroom.


it looked like a tornado hit it. then a couple of days ago, my work sent me to North Carolina to train their training coordinator and some of their staff. I just got back yesterday night.

build your vocab, feed a child

I meant to post this site up awhile ago but never got around to it so I forgot all about it until today when I heard a report about it on npr.

the site is www.freerice.com

basically, you go to the site and and they give you a word and a list of options for definitions for the word. as you answer more questions correctly, the difficulty level of the word goes up. nothing new, right? well, here's where the revolutionary part comes in. for every word you get right, the site donates 10 grains of rice to help end world hunger. as the word difficulty goes up, the more grains of rice they donate per correct word. how can they afford to do this? they have sponsors that pay for ads on their site which they in turn use to pay for the rice. just yesterday alone they donated 167,077,300 grains of rice. so, if you have time, stop by their site, build your vocab, feed a hungry kid.

I give it two phones up

as some of you may know my phones been gone for about two months now. in any case, as of today, I have a new phone with a new phone company (same phone number) so you can start reaching me at my area code 785 phone number again if you need to.

866-411-SONG

ever had a song come on the radio and not know what the song is? well now you can. just punch in the above number and hold the receiver up to the radio and the phone'll tell you what the name of the song is.