I decided to download and play with the free version of the Spore Creature Creator.
Beware the Slammadon. He likes to head-butt.
Month: June 2008
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Homosexual Earns Olympic Berth
No, I’m not being anti-gay. At least, I’m not. They are most definitely being anti-“Gay” and to understand the reference, I’m going to be mean and make you click through the link to Off Resonance’s coverage of the Gay/Homosexual Olympic Saga.
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Are MMORPGs Addictive?
Cognitive Daily shows the results from a limited study of how several computer games affect college students. Are MMORPGs the new reefer? Perhaps.I do not play WOW or Age of Conan or any of the other MMORPGs. I’ve refused because I’ve seen since the inception of Ultima and EverQuest just how much valuable time can be sucked down by the need to play the game. Not that I’m throwing stones, here. I’ve been a Tetris freak in my time and I’ve been known to stay up ’til the wee hours for just one more turn on Civilization. I know my limitations and I’m pretty sure that WOW would be the end of my free time.
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Tunguska Centennial
Today is the 100 year anniversary of the Tunguska meteor impact. If you don’t know why this is important, I suggest you read “Rain of Iron and Ice” by John Lewis. I own a copy so if you’re ever in town, you can borrow it. It’s one of my books that doesn’t get loaned.*
If the Tunguska impactor had hit 8 hours later, it would have obliterated St. Petersburgh, Russia. That’s a reason to care.
*I don’t “loan” books anymore. It’s like money: if you’re so hung up about getting things back, you will sour the relationship with the friend/family member/random schmoe that you loaned the book to. Just give it away and maybe they’ll give it back. If they’re not someone that you would want to give books (or money) to, then why are you?
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Poison Ivy
Today’s Xkcd hits a bit close to home for me.
One of my fun surprises when I moved to Atlanta was just how big poison ivy can grow around here. A tip: if you’re hiking in Georgia, don’t lean against the four-inch-thick hairy vine that’s growing up the side of a tree. For that matter, don’t lean against the hairy vine no matter how thick. Where I lived in New Hampshire, poison ivy was always a ground plant, growing in small clumps or bushes, so I got me an edumacation the first time I had to go to the doctor for a steroid shot.
Now I hear that increased CO2 concentrations can lead to explosive growth of our hairy-stemmed poisonous friend. Anecdotally, I can attest that I have a ton of poison ivy growing in my yard this year. It wasn’t there previously; this is new growth going to town with a vengeance. We’ve been forced to bring out the nuclear weapons (Roundup™).
So, watch out hiking in Georgia; if you’re working with the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club, always always always wear long pants.
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"Wanted"
Jenn and I saw “Wanted” this evening. I’m sure our primary motivation to see this was Angelina Jolie, which shows what sort of literary taste we have.
Verdict: Not bad, but definitely not good. It’s a bloody action film with lots of un-ponderable and questionably crazy action bits. Doff your skeptic hat before you walk through the door and you’ll be fine.
If you’ve seen any of the previews then you know that this is about a group of assassins who are just so damn good that they can bend the flight of bullets by flinging their arms around while firing their weapons. My radar pinged on that one a bit because don’t bullets spin rapidly already? But I put that out of my mind. The only tooth-grinding unrealistic moment for me was when a passenger train car goes sliding down a gorge with it’s ends grinding against opposite rock walls and ends up stopping, intact and upright, before hitting the bottom. But, I took off my hat before going in, so I was ok.
Should you see it? Probably not in the theaters. Rent it. Much better to save the money to see “Hancock” twice.
Aren’t you glad you’ve got me who will go see these movies even knowing they will maybe suck?
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Blog Theme Revampification
The latest theme for this blog is at a point now where I’ll leave it alone for a while. Thanks go to several people who either contributed ideas or code.
Firstly to Sadish Balasubramanian of WordPress Themeshop for providing such a nice theme for me to mess about with. If I had more time and desire, I’d probably try to write up my own theme, but I don’t so I’m happy to fool around with other people’s. Additionally, John Scalzi is using this theme on his Whatever, which is where I saw it first and decided that I wanted to use it.
Secondly to Chris Schierer for providing me with his Rotating Header Image™ code which I proceeded to emasculate for my purposes. The implementation at his blog is much more interesting, providing a small probability of a “weird” logo as well as Holiday logos on the appropriate days. Thanks, Chris.
Thirdly to Josh Hallet and his Hyku website which I covet and admire. You’ll recognize that I stole with malice aforethought his header image thematics. His site is much better than mine. See my note above about time, etc. Thanks, Josh.
Lastly…well there is no lastly. Here’s the the new look. Keep looking for new header images. I can see where I might end up with a lot of those.
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New Header Images
Look up! New header images are being created! And, thanks to the lovely code provided to me by Chris Schierer, they will rotate at random.
However, as is my normal method when doing things webbish, I’m trying to smash together a few pieces of code that aren’t getting along. If you notice the header doing weird stuff and/or the website occasionally providing only a PARSING ERROR – YOU SUCK notice, that’s all me. It’ll be fixed soon.
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Jenn's Coming Home!
Yay! Jenn will be “home” in an hour. By “home” I mean Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. I guess I should think about departing to pick her up.
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Favorite Photo of the Week
Dad’s visiting. We went to Anna Ruby Falls near Unicoi State Park in north Georgia.
I need a haircut.