Eastern Standard Time: Day 1

My vacation started June 21st. I was going to fly out to see my friend, a grad student at Princeton, NJ.

After a short hop to O'hare, I would catch my connecting flight to Newark three hours later. I waited around for two hours and, on a whim, asked the fellow at the gate desk if my flight was still on time. He informed me that it had been canceled and I should check with so-and-so at some desk somewhere.

Turned out they transfered me to a flight that had already left. Suck. The best I could do was get on another one early the next morning. I called my sister, who thankfully lives in the Chicagoland area, and she picked me up. Unfortunately, she couldn't drive me in the morning so I had to call a cab to take me back to the airport.

New Computer

My computron broke last week; it just decided not to start up anymore. I'd been saving up for a new one anyway, so this was my opportunity. My friend came over to help - I'm glad he did. It turned out to be a bit more complicated than I thought.

It works now though. Good times.

Food Poisoning

If you ever have the choice between food poisoning and death, well, just be sure to think it through. My vice got me in big trouble a week and a half ago and I missed two days of work.

Monday I was up all night with my head over a trashcan. It was horrible. Tuesday my face is all red with broken capillaries and my eyes are horrifically bloodshot. Nearly two weeks later and I still look hungover. Wednesday I called the health department. They asked what I ate, what symptoms I had and when I experienced them and then told me they'd send somebody over to inspect the place.

I like to think I saved someone else from a fate worse than death. My sacrifice will not be in vain!

Snack Box

Our office used to have an honor-system snack box on top of the soda machine. The lady who used to supply it stopped doing so. There has been a void in our lives (and stomaches).

Monday, this void will be filled.

Plastic Window Seals

Our electric bill arrived today. I had heard bad omens from a few friends of mine, but it was still a shock that we owe more than double what we did last month. We resolved to do whatever we could to bring that number down. Tonight's project: sealing up the bedroom windows. Plastic window sealing kits can be found at your local hardware store.

If, like us, your blinds are screwed directly into the window frame, you'll have to remove them. The office and spare room will have to do without blinds for the rest of the winter, as I don't want to screw through my brand new pristine seal. Luckily, the master bedroom's blinds are affixed to the wall above the window.


The kit comes with a big plastic sheet and some double-sided tape.


Tape along each side of the window.


After 15 minutes, remove the protective backing from the tape on the top of the frame. If you're doing multiple windows, tape them all, and by the time you're done with the last, the backing on the first can safely be removed.


Measure out and cut a piece of plastic, making sure there will be a few extra inches on each side.


Stick the plastic to the top of the window, then remove the protective film from the tape on the sides and bottom of the frame, and attach the plastic there. It's okay if there are wrinkles.


Using a blow dryer on the highest setting, heat the plastic, starting with a corner. It will shrink (immediately), forming a tight seal around the window. When you're finished, the plastic will be totally invisible except for reflections. It doesn't look tacky like I thought it might.


Put your blinds back, if you can. Enjoy your draft-free window, but don't touch it!

Dord

This is my new favorite word.
dord (dôrd), n. Phisics & Chem. Density

edit: Though thagomizer is a close second.

The Hawking Paradox

We watched this show the other night called The Hawking Paradox (Dan's thoughts). Basically, it was about Hawking trying to reconcile the ideas that black holes destroy stuff utterly, and information can never be utterly destroyed.

His final solution was this:
When information is destroyed in a black hole, there are many other alternate universes where the information is still intact - because there isn't a black hole in that spot. If you average all the results from all parallel universes, the problem of destroyed information cancels out.

I call "bull$*@#!" That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's tantamount to saying "No, see, if you just pretend the black hole isn't there, then there's no problem! See?" ...crickets chirping.

Real Animation

Disney is switching back to real animation. Hopefully, the industry will follow their lead (like it always has).

Hopefully this will mean more good films along the lines of:
The Emperor's New Groove
Tarzan
Hercules
The Lion King
Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
The Little Mermaid


And less tripe like:
Shark Tale
Robots
Madagascar
Chicken Little
Hoodwinked
Open Season

(Yes, I know only one of those is a Disney film)

Screamerella

I drawed a picture.

Planting a Tree

In the spirit of telling stories from months ago, here's one from November!

Erin's parents gave us a tree for our anniversary. I called JULIE, the underground kill-line report service, to make sure there were no power or water lines running through our front yard, then took an afternoon and dug a hole. It was a fine hole, devoid of dirt.

Then the tree came and we placed it in the hole. I put the hole-dirt in one of our garbage cans, but now I don't know what to do with it. Dad says I should just spread it out over the yard, but it's been cold lately and I haven't wanted to.

Bathroom Painting Photos

A while ago, we painted the bathroom, but I never posted pictures. Here are pictures.

Gorditabraten

I want to create a German-Mexican fusion restaurant so I can call it Taco Schnell.

No nose hath smelt...

I thought I knew the depths of stink. Both of our basement toilets spewed forth a dizzying cloud of sewer gas today. We tried to ignore it at first, but we were soon overwhelmed and had to stand outside. The poor intern is cleaning it up. Poor, poor redshirt.

First Recorded Emoticon?

Could this link show evidence of the first recorded emoticon?

Quantum Cryptography

Somehow, I fail to see how this quantum cryptography thingy is a big deal. Isn't it just a really good random number generator?

Warning: Ignorance Alert! This is merely my layperson understanding of how this works...
If I want to decode an encrypted message, I need three things:

1. The encoded message.


2. The method used to encode it.


3. The encryption key (usually a number or a word).

Say, for example, I send a secret message to my friend Ruteger. "Meet me at Steak and Shake. You're buying." I run it through my encryption machine with the key "857312." Even if someone intercepted the message and knew my encryption method, they would still need the key. In this case, the key is rather short and a computer could guess it with trial and error.

But wait... Why not generate the number with a photon? Photons can make random numbers using SCIENCE! Now, instead of the pseudo-random number key "857312," I can now have a truly random number key: "2287937."

The amount of work done by the spy is the same. Am I missing something here? Do I have a fundamentally flawed understanding of cryptography? (likely)

City of Heroes: Wings

Holy cow, these look amazing; the animators really did their homework. After seeing them on the test server, I'll probably put these on a lot more characters than would strictly make sense. Winged robot AWAY!

YouTube video.

The Prestige

Awesome movie. It's sort of a murder mystery with a SHOCKING TWIST! Two magicians with a bitter rivalry are always trying to one-up each other, with deadly and awesome consequences. Seriously, best film I've seen in a while.

Also, Nikola Tesla is in it.

SPORE Sloth

I can't wait for SPORE to come out. This game would seem to be everything I've ever wanted. Hopefully you can put lights and smokestacks on your critters, so I can make this:

The Internet in One Sentence

I found this quote in the comments of a YouTube video. It eloquently sums up the vast majority of discorse on the web:

City of Heroes: Veteran Rewards

CoH will soon have a new system where subscribers get in-game prizes based on how long they've had an active account. They revealed the latest batch of them today.

3 Months: Trenchcoat
Folks have been asking for this for a long time.

6: Greek Alphabet chest emblems
This is the lamest reward by a big margin. Guess they can't all be super good.

9: Kilts for males, "belly shirts" for females
I hear reqests for kilts all the time too.

12: Bonus attack power, special versions of the "sprint" power, and some new decorative pieces for supergroup bases
Some fun stuff. The extra attack will help out at low levels and the base items can add that much more dimension and realism to a base. The sprint powers were originally exclusive preorder items. Those who got them with their preorder felt it was a special little bonus that not many people would have. Now a fair number of people will and that doesn't sit right.

15: Wings
These look exactly as I wanted them to look. Well done. They even flap when you fly!

18: Samurai armor
Looks great! Very nice.

21: One-shoulder cape
Eh, kinda lame. I can't think of any of my characters that would look good with this.

24: Teleport power that takes you to your supergroup base, more decorative base items, special titles
Exclusively-solo players are out of luck here. I'm psyched though. My SG base is awesome.

27: New tech armor
Not bad looking, but really not anything special. This doesn't look all that different from the tech armor options we already have.

30: Chest emblems from existing NPC groups, more decorative base items
Seems like another filler milestone to me.

33: Really really cool bonus attack power
The Nemesis Staff is the sweetest temp power in the game. Now I'll get to keep it FOREVER!

36: Non-combat pet, decorative base items
A little critter that follows you around. I hope we'll get to name them. Looks like fun!

Scattered in there are also a bunch of costume change tokens and character respecs. Unfortunately (or not), they've given out so many of those already that they're just not an enticing reward anymore, so I did not include them in my list.