Original Thought Fail

So I was laying (lying?) in my bed late at night thinking. I was thinking about video games, and in particular how one controls them. Its pretty interesting (at least to my fatigue-addled brain) how moving one's thumbs can control a myriad of activity on a screen.

Nowadays, though,  the enlightened gamer has more than just the option of buttons. With the advent of the Wii, gamers saw for the first time motion transformed into virtual activity (Nintendo Power-Glove notwithstanding). This set me to thinking again.

If we can make video games that force people to move around and perhaps even exercise, couldn't we put a dent in our nationwide obesity epidemic? In fact, with the popularity of online gaming, there could be organized matches set up where fitness would give you an advantage. Beating other people would then become the motivation for being fit. By golly this could be a revolution!

A full 5 minutes after this fit of idealism, I realized my revelation already had a name: Organized Sports.

It's A Wonderful Life

It's Christmas Eve, and it's just about my bedtime. Haven't gone to bed before midnight in quite some time, but I anticipate being woken up by my sister fairly early tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I just watched "It's A Wonderful Life" (yeah, I teared up at the end) and I figured I should try to make the internet a slightly more cheerful place and express a bit of the happiness and contentment I'm feeling. Yay to friends, food, presents, rest, Christmas lights, Vince Gauraldi, snow, candles, the Grinch, carols, even family. I'm not really in it for the whole Jesus aspect of the holiday, but something celebrating peace and goodwill to man sounds pretty good to me. In all sincereness, have a wonderful holiday, everyone. Merry Christmas.

Hulu and the Problems it Causes

Many of you probably already know what Hulu.com is, but for those who don't I will endeavor to explain. Hulu.com (as well as a few other similar sites) stream video over the Internet. This means that you can watch The Office or Family Guy on your computer. Hulu consequently appeals to people like me whose parents refuse to pay for more than a few TV channels (or a reasonable sized TV for that matter).

My newfound addiction to Hulu.com has provided me with more than a few problems, only a couple actually related to the website itself:

-First, it doesn't work well with the Internet at my college, so no Daily Show instead of homework

-The way Hulu pays for its content is advertising; one episode is brought to the viewer by one product. And since there is only one product, there is only one commercial. At one point, I watched the same 30 second commercial about KY warming lube 10 times over the course of one movie.

-Since I have a laptop, I have taken to watching videos in bed. And sometimes while I'm watching, I like to eat delicious food. I am thus faced with the task of trying to eat Rice Krispies with bananas, while navigating a website in a reclining position. Needless to say, my loins have been sprayed with liberal amounts of rice, krispies, bananas, and milk.

That being said, Hulu is a lovely website and services like it are certainly the future of video media. THE END

Me? A Nerd?

Thought you all might enjoy:


Oh flowcharts.

Red Bull Gives You Wings. And the Urge to Hurt Things that Can't Feel Pain

I entered the fray of finals and have emerged, not necessarily victorious, but alive at least. That being said, finishing finals and still being at college is awful. I'm stuck waiting for Wednesday while my hall-mates hop in their cars and drive a quaint hour home. Its like waking up on christimas morning, being all excited for presents, stumbling into the bathroom to take a morning pee, and then becoming inexplicably locked in the bathroom until 4:00 pm.

The only thing making this dismal limbo bearable is Girl Talk (youtube it if you're unenlightened) and my subwoofer. Also Arizona Iced Tea.

Yesterday I discovered I am sensitive to Caffiene. I had approximately three energy drinks in the course of 8 hours, and consequently felt the urge to punch things. Inanimate objects seemed to threaten me by merely existing. Also I don't think there has ever been uttered a fiercer string of obscenities than the one I directed at a Spanish homework assignment.

I'm thinking that over break me and Cam should alternate paragraphs and write a collaborative story. I'm betting this will entail less work than a regular posting schedule. If you're so inclined tell me what you think of such an idea.

Speaking of Useless Knowledge

Somewhat tellingly, a post as well-researched as the following could only happen when I've spent more than half of the last 72 hours in a self-imposed exile, trying to study but only succeeding only in finding really creative ways to be unproductive. Things I have done instead: watched a lot of episodes of 30 Rock (Alec Baldwin is a god amongst men), explored a freakin' creepy basement, read Ender's Game (for the first time, actually... wow), and watched Pan's Labyrinth (also really good). Finally, yesterday I upgraded to the St. Elba equivilant on campus, the (gasp!) WiFi-less chapel. Sadly, shortly after I arrived and got set up, I realized I actually needed the internet for research, and returned with a sigh to my previously-posted-about nook in the library.

Anyway, in my endless trawling of the internet, I came across the following term: liberticide, which is a destroyer of liberty. Inspired by the slightly unlikely existence of this word, I went fishing for more words about killing, and came up with the following: Vulpicide, Dominicide, Vaticide, Vermicide, Uxoricide, Deicide, Tyrannicide, Lampricide, Giganticide. What do they mean? Take a guess if you're feeling adventurous, or just skip down to my amusingly annotated definitions below.

- Vulpicide: The killing of a fox by means other than hunting with hounds. (Why is this word needed? How AWESOME is it that this word exists?!)
- Dominicide: The act of killing a master.
- Vaticide: The killing of a prophet. (Wouldn't a great headline be: Vaticide at the Vatican?)
- Vermicide: A substance killing worms.
- Uxoricide - The killing of one's wife (Personally, I think this would make a great band name.)
- Deicide: The killing of a god. (Which is, actually, the name of a band.)
- Tyrannicide: The killing of tyrants. (And don't tell me you didn't think for one second it was about dinosaur murders. Don't lie like that.)
- Lampricide: A substance that kills lampreys. (Another misnomer. For one brief, glorious moment, I thought someone had come up with a word for killing lamps and forced it into the accepted vernacular.)
- Giganticide: The killing of a giant. (Hurray! Not a misnomer!)

On a final, triumphant note, I would like to say that I have finally fixed the damn Blogger clock! Muahaha! No longer shall our posts be on Pacific Time! Honestly, you readers have no idea how much this bothered Nathan and I.

Test Your Knowledge

Rather than rant to you about meaningless things, today I'm going to make you feel stupid for not knowing meaningless things. This is a quiz about AXE body spray, which has existed since 1983 in France but came to America right around the time I became socially conscious (2002). 

See if you can match the product description to the product name. I did not make any of this up; it is from that veritable mine of knowledge, Wikipedia, so you know its true. Go ahead try it (highlight inside parantheses for answers).

A. Pulse   B. Essence   C. Touch   D. Unlimited   E. Clix   F. Vice   G. Dark Temptation   H. Instinct   

Man: part good, part bad. An angel and yet a demon. (B)

According to the commercial, this fragrance will allow you to do limitless stunts and Jackie Chan-esque Kung-Fu (D)

Might make you into chocolate. This is good because then women will nibble on you. (G)

Gets women excited, simply by looking at the man wearing this scent (C)

 It gives geeks confidence, as well as sweet dance moves to impress the ladies (A)

Makes men so attractive, they need a mechanical counter to keep track of how many girls ogle them. (E)

Turns normal females into crazed nymphomaniacs. (F)

This scent is said to contain the smells of "Rare Leathers" [such as armadillo leather] (H)

ok I made up the bit about the armadillo leather

Nooks and Crannies

It's finals time up here at St. Lawrence as well. While I only have one actual final, my other classes compensated by assigning lots of essays due over the next week, which is definitely less stressful but definitely more work. Indeed, got a 12 page research paper for American Politics due at 5:00 this evening, hence me sitting in the library at 10 AM on a Friday.

The library, however, is swiftly growing on me. It's sort of the architectural equivalent of sweat pants: ugly as hell, but fairly cozy. It's a massive building, full of vibrantly painted study rooms, trees, these odd elevated cubicles in which you have the interesting opportunity to be bored and procrastinating 10 feet above everyone else, and ridiculously comfortable and numerous couches and armchairs. There may some books as well. Seriously though, some enterprising soul took it upon themselves decades ago to scatter vast numbers of lounge chairs in unlikely corners of our library, and I shall forever be in their gratitude. So here I am, surrounded by microfilm that I seriously doubt ever has been or will be disturbed, the ugliest carpeting the 70's could dredge up, bombshelter-esque cement walls, and, redeemingly, a huge window allowing me to look at the snowstorm dancing outside. It's actually quite nice to sit here and procrastinate, listening to my atmospheric Icelandic music and wondering where the hell that photocopier sound is coming from. I just wish the motion-sensor lights would quit shutting off.

Empty Classrooms and Empty Souls

So I'm writing this in an empty classroom all by my lonesome presumably studying for a psychology final. Being at a college where finals are imminent is similar to being in a war-zone: mostly mind-boggling boredom punctuated by brief moments of bowel shaking "excitement".

There is only so long I can look at words in a book before I am gripped by the urge to see how many consecutive desks I can clear in one jump (even if the last attempt left me with colorful bruises).

The bastards in the room next door started an eraser fight in which I was dragged into. The flurry of dusty barrages was ceased on account of poignancy, when me and some kid I don't know threw erasers at each other from across the room. Both erasers hit each other in mid-air and released a plume of dust which slowly settled in the center of the battle field. It was like that floating plastic bag scene in American Beauty.

I figured out how to hook up cable tv to the projector in a lecture hall. There goes an hour.

Tiled floors and socks. Need I elaborate?

At one point I got locked out of my classroom and needed campus safety to unlock it. As we passed another room with only a male and female inhabitant inside, the campus safety guy asked me "Were they makin' out or something?" I responded with my best straight face "Looks like they were studying. On the floor." He snorted "Studyin' my ass. He was studyin' her eyes."

Nintendo 64

In my hallway, one could find a Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2 & 3, and in my room, a Nintendo 64. If I had to pick between any of these, I'd honestly pick the N64. The pixels may be fist-sized, there's no online gameplay, and there's a whole host of other problems, I'm sure. However, for ingenuity of controllers, ease of troubleshooting, and quality of games, the N64 wins out.

First of all, N64 controllers are wonderful. They're simple, the right size, and comfortable to hold. The presence of a trigger is also something that most contemporary controllers sadly lack. Secondly, every problem the N64 has ever had can be solved by blowing into either the cartridge or the slot where the cartridge goes in. No "red ring of death" or anything like that. Most importantly, the games are wonderful. All of my favorite games are are fairly easy to get decent at, but can be played for hours upon hours and never quite mastered. My favorite games: Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Starfox, MarioKart, and Super Smash Brothers. I also enjoy Pokemon Stadium and Super Mario 64, but they don't quite make my top 5. Can't find that combination of games on any other platform. I rest my case.

Is it LSD or Just Me?

The first I heard of synesthesia was in a writing prompt included in a standardized test (Massachusetts Comprehensive Academic Something or Other test, to be precise). The admittedly dry and poorly written blurb spoke of a mysterious a neurologically based phenomenon. It results when a few neurons are crossed in one's brain, causing some funky stuff to happen. People with synesthesia may assign tastes to numbers, colors to letters, and visual images to sound. Sounds crazy, but its a well documented occurence. In order to better understand this "disorder" (in quotes because its more of a superpower anyways) I've taken the liberty of interviewing a man with synesthesia. His name is Sam.

ME: Hello Sam. Thanks for agreeing to do this.

SAM: Yeah, no problem. (Sam's pretty cool)

ME: So, synesthesia right? Can you explain what its like?

SAM: Do you know how in iTunes you can turn on the visualizer?

ME: Yeah...

SAM: Its nothing like that. Basically sounds manifest themselves as sight.

ME: Doesn't that get in the way of seeing things, like, if you're listening to a particularly rocking guitar solo in the car, do the note-splosions get in the way?

SAM: Note-splosions?

ME: Yeah, its the scientific term. Or whatever.

SAM: Actually it doesn't really work like that. Its more like I have a sixth sense; seeing sound is the best way I can describe it to a muggle like you.

ME: Did you just call me a muggle?

SAM: Don't worry about it

ME: Ok! So, whats the best looking sound you've ever heard?

SAM: That would be Samuel L. Jackson reading the new testament

ME: What? Are you serious?

SAM: No not at all. I just get really sick of interviewers asking that question. I told the lady from Readers Digest the best looking sound was the Tie Fighter noise from Star Wars.

ME: Oh Sam, you are quite the kidder. Everyone knows that sound is just a baby elephant squeal played in tandem with a car on pavement. (Totally true).

SAM: You know the sound of you casually dropping random facts to let everyone know how smart you are, looks black as death.

ME: Ha, like I said quite the kidder.

I'm aware this post wasn't the most informative of entries, but if your curiosity is piqued, you may want to check the wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia). It does a much better job of explaining than either me or Synesthesia Sam could do.

Coldness

I spent a considerable portion of yesterday telling anyone who would listen that overnight, the temperature was expected to drop to -3°, and -15° with windchill. In any case, I awoke at 8:00 this morning and flipped open my laptop, only to be greeted by my dashboard, informing me that it was currently -7° in Canton. With an unhappy little shriek, I realized I was about to have venture outside into these inhospitable conditions. Sure enough, it turns out that the body undergoes a positive whirlwind of physiological changes upon exposure to such conditions. My skin turned a splotchy white/purple, like a recent bruise. A very significant portion of my hair froze over the course of the literally 45 second walk to the student center (I made the mistake of showering before I left). My lips dried out instantly, and I can only guess what would have happened if I had opened my mouth. Worst of all, my ears stubbornly refused to go numb like the rest of my face, and stung miserably. Breathing become a labored, wheezing, affair. Furthermore, the snow becomes very squeaky at these temperatures, which gets annoying (Nathan? You know why? I'm clueless). In short, it was cold.

By the way, Nathan, we're waiting for you to get your act together and to write an interesting article about synesthesia.

Chiquita Bombs+Spikeballs

In case any of the people reading this are stalking me on Facebook, you should direct your attention to my profile where my co-author (He's MY co-author, I am not his) called me a bitch for my tardy posting. Let the record show that even though this blog's messed up clock says that I haven't posted in a day, it was in fact Cameron Lownie who neglected to post for a full 24 hours. That being said lets talk about something else I beat Cam at: Liero.

I'm not entirely sure how many people outside of Doherty Middle School have played the game Liero (Or its endless variations e.g. LieroV, Backstreet Boys Liero, Pogs Liero) but I figured it deserves a mention. Liero is a 2-D video game played on a PC in which two to four worms are pitted against each other in a fight to the death. Naturally each player controls a worm as well as its arsenal of weapons. Weapons such as Gatling guns, ridiculously overpowered rifles, shotguns, and bouncy mines are among the choices, with more insane weapons added to later versions. 

In the original version my strategy consisted of a deadly cocktail of chiquita bombs (exploding banana bunches) and spikeballs (spike balls), as well as a subtle mastery of the ninja rope (used by pressing the jump button and change weapon button at the same time), which allows a player to grapple about the level . Many a Liero player's last vision before respawning was my worm descending on a ninja rope spewing spikeballs and oddly cheerful yellow bombs.

Adding to the mystique of this wonderful game is the fact that I could never get it to work on my home computer. Even though us middle schoolers had to figure out complicated ways around the proxy server for the computers in the Doherty library, (I believe that me and my friends were cause for 90% of our school's system crashes) Liero always worked. Never being able to play it outside of middle school ensured that my time spent brutally maiming other players' worms would always remain an untainted and happy childhood memory.

Wikipedia

I don't know exactly what percentage of my life I've spent on Wikipedia, but it's fairly sizable. In just the past two of days, I have looked up the following: The Last Waltz (a concert video of The Band by Martin Scorsese), Joe Higgs (excellent reggae artist), Deal or No Deal (wanted to see if it was as deplorably dumb as it appeared), and Nalgene (have those outdoorsy/hippy types ever abandoned a product more swiftly?). Imagining life without the Internet is difficult enough, but to think that Wikipedia was created just seven years ago is mindboggling.

Anyway, a bit more than a month ago it was brought to my attention that it is extremely amusing to alter Wikipedia articles. I have no idea why this is so, but trust me, it's fun. An early endeavor involved adding 'Love' to the ingredient list of Swedish fish (which is clearly accurate - how else can you explain their deliciousness?). The really interesting aspect of this is the rapidity with which the articles are restored to their former boring but accurate selves. The aforementioned Swedish Fish alteration was removed in a matter of minutes. Currently, I have asserted that Samuel L. Jackson was approached to provide the voice of God in an audiobook version of the New Testament (which is actually true) because "producers felt his voice actually resembled the booming baritone of the Lord." Half an hour after this edit was created, it stands tall. The people who fix these things are really amazingly diligent, however, and I somewhat doubt that it will survive the night. We shall see.

Interestingly, Samuel L. Jackson is the only the second most popular Samuel L on Wikipedia. Beating him out is Samuel L. Bodine, a Senator from New Jersey in the 40s.

A Few Collected Thoughts

My amount of homework and my willingness to blog are directly proportional.

What kind of sick person would put a gravestone store next to the senior citizen housing my grandmother lives in? (Completely true)

Apparently 5 years of bagged lunch residue has the same chemical makeup as explosives. The TSA has made a tradition of apprehending it at every available opportunity. They grab it and swab it with those little cloths, then frown at the results. Then they eventually give it back, and I show my displeasure by sighing audibly at them.

Michael Caine's portrayal of Scrooge in "A Muppets Christmas Carol" should have won an academy award.

You know how that not-entirely-logical fear-gas-water stuff in Batman Begins had to be vaporized to be effective? I feel bad for the people of Gotham who picked that night to have a hot shower, and as a result, developed an intense and inexplicable fear of shampoo.

This is just a filler piece. I think I'll write a real blog post soon.
Possibly on Muppets, or that disorder where you can see sound.

My Opinion: TV Shows

I reckon that if I can't go posting my opinions on random subjects is sort of the point of having a blog, so here goes: my list of my 5 favorite TV shows of the past 15 years, in no particular order.

- Lost
- Scrubs
- Freaks and Geeks
- Arrested Development
- The Office

Not a terribly ambitious list, just my five favorites. Very very difficult to leave Mystery Science Theater 3000 off the list, but it was best before the 15 year cut-off. Another omission I had to make was The Daily Show, since it's not really a show in same sense as the others. That definitely would have made my list of 5 favorites, and would narrowly have missed out on the following: my list of the 5 best TV shows of the past 15 years.

- The Simpsons
- Seinfeld
- The Sopranos
- The Wire
- The X-Files

It's true, there is no overlap. No idea what that says about my taste, but there you go. Just missing out on the 5 best list are Lost, South Park, Battlestar Galactica.

Thoughts? Disagreements? Post a response!

Not Hallucinations, Just...Floaters

Like Cam, I too am back from a lovely break, and as such, must return to posting semi-regularly. On a self-laudatory note, this blog broke 1000 page views last week, and is well on the way to 2000. I'm not really sure how impressive that is relative to the rest of the Internet, and I think at least 300 are just from me alone, but whatever.

I'm sure by now you are wondering what the title of this post means. It was this same power of curiosity that brought me to discover the eponymous secret of the Floaters. Have you ever gazed up at the sky on a day when it was particularly blue and bright? If you have, you may have noticed little specks dashing in front of your vision. Try as you may to follow them, they seem to skitter away from your gaze. I always thought it was one of the many odd imperfections of my body, but driven by my thirst for knowledge, I now know it is instead a real documented phenomenon. 

I tried to find a scientific name, but apparently people just call them floaters. Whatever. Anyways, they're caused by bits of cellular debris (parts of you that fell off) that are quite literally floating around in your eyeball. This explains why they skitter away from your field of vision. To look at them, you have to move your eyeball, but they're IN your eyeball so they move too! (I'm aware this may only be amusing/make sense to me).

So next time you think your sense of sight is broken, don't worry its just dead cells chilling in your eyeball.

Long Time, No Blog

After a week of friends, family, and food, I am back at St. Lawrence, where it is snowing. Nice six hour drive to get up here, but at least I dodged most of the bad weather that seems to have plagued the Northeast today. Although Thanksgiving is possibly my least favorite holiday (No presents + lots of relatives = meh), seeing everyone back home was awesome, and I had a lovely break. Anyhoo, no real topic today, just some assorted thoughts and suggestions.

DO listen to Damien Rice. I did a lot of that on the long car ride I had today, and his voice is second to none. Standout tracks include: The Blower's Daughter, Lonelily, Cannonball.

DO NOT neglect your school email for the whole of break. You may have a poster and two page essay due Monday morning.

DO watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Produced during that strike we had last year, it's a mostly funny but then abruptly serious 45 minute production that you should probably take the time to watch. Who knew Neil Patrick Harris could sing? What percent of the readership knows who he even is? (Doogie Howser, M.D. for the record)

DO NOT excitedly show all your college friends a video you made with your high school friends. They might not find it as funny as you expect, although if your college friends are nice like mine, they'll still chuckle appreciatively.

DO find a way to sign Varitek, Theo. Please.

DO NOT allow the theme song to Reading Rainbow to get stuck in your head, as my roommate has done. He says it's because a cousin watched the show a lot over Thanksgiving, but I'm dubious.