Author: andy

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Hilarious…

Remember all that National Spelling Bee hullabaloo from last week? Well, Dr. Macarthur pointed me to a little blurb about some of the people who lost…

For example, one ten-year-old named Katie got words like “anastomosis” and “zedoary” correct, neither of which I’ve ever heard before… But what word does she get wrong? “Friend.” Now, the real kicker here is what Katie’s Mom said, in defense of her daughter’s stupidity:

We thought we had all of the words covered, but then they pull one out of the blue like that.? The real challenge for the kids is when they come across a word that they just don’t ever use in their daily life.

Apparently being home-schooled means you don’t have very many “friends”…

Oh, and another good one… This kid, Kevin, is a fifth grader and got words like “consecrated” and “intracutaneous” correct, but then misspelled “sapphic,” which apparently means ‘of or pertaining to homosexuality among women.’ Well, when asked about it, his mother said the following:

I just couldn’t believe it when they announced his word.? The whole reason we pulled him out of the public schools in the first place is so he wouldn’t have to be exposed to a filthy word like that.

Mom, thanks for not home-schooling me…

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Review: X-Men – The Last Stand

Josh and I went and saw “X3” today, and I must say, I was pleased.? I had read a few reviews before seeing it, saying such things like “lots of action, little ‘heart'”…or “not quite Bryan Singer, but still worth the popcorn”…? Personally, I thought it held its own very well with the other iterations.

The story mostly deals with a mutant that’s discovered that can “mute” the powers of other mutants, allowing for a cure for mutant-ism.? Some mutants are cool with this (mainly, Rogue…) while others (just about everyone else…) isn’t.? This theme allows for a large number of ethical issues to be brought up, and they were.? I thought there was a pretty good mix of “issues” and “action” thrown together in the movie; while the action in “X-Men” and “X2” were generally spread throughout, this one really concentrated the brunt of it at the end (I mean, there were action scenes in the movie, but they seemed relatively short except for the ending…).

My only real complaint was with the very beginning…? I read a few reviews mentioning the digital effects used to make Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart look 20 years younger…and while Picard’s were done relatively well, I thought McKellan’s was a bit too obvious.? For the rest of the movie, the effects were pretty damned cool…especially the Jean Grey – to – Dark Phoenix transformations…? The action was well-choreographed and many favorites (Colossus and Storm) got much more “face time” than in previous movies.

I’ll make one thing perfectly clear, though: you must stay through the credits to watch the scene played at the end.? It is absolutely imperative.? Honestly, I thought the movie was “pretty good” when the credits started…and by the very end, I had to upgrade that analysis…’cause what was left hanging from earlier (threads that weren’t quite tied together…didn’t quite make sense as to why that scene was even in there…) was dealt with…and in spades…

Go see it in the theaters.? Don’t wait for the DVD release.? Buy it when it comes out, though…it’s a keeper…

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Ahem…

As stolen from Tom Yonker’s Facebook profile:

“However dominant in terms of numbers, Christianity is only a thread in the American tapestry – it is not the whole tapestry. The God who is spoken of and called on and prayed to in the public sphere is an essential character in the American drama, but He is not specifically God the Father or the God of Abraham. The right’s contention that we are a ‘Christian nation’ that has fallen from pure origins and can achieve redemption by some kind of return to Christian values is based on wishful thinking, not convincing historical argument.”

–Jon Meacham, NEWSWEEK Managing Editor, author of “American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation”

Indeed…

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For the one with everything…

Looking for something special for Memorial Day presents this year? Why don’t you try the Concerto Table? It comes with an iPod dock and two 50 watt speakers…and is shaped like a piano…

The blurb about it is from Engadget…damn, that site helps waste some time at work…

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Review: The Da Vinci Code

Brooke and I saw “The Da Vinci Code” last night (for free, incidentally), and I must say that it was pretty good.? For some reason, I knew I’d like it in the end, despite what many reviewers were saying…but having read the book (Brooke read it twice, even…) and watched plenty of TV shows over the past year dealing with some of the issues brought up in the story, I was interested in seeing it on the big screen, putting a visual to the words in the book.

The movie, overall, was pretty well done, I thought.? I’d say it stuck with the book a good 90% of the time.? There were many times I thought that the words spoken on screen were taken directly from the book, as well as the transitions from scene to scene…but there were some other times where Ron Howard took a few “liberties,” especially in the specifics of the ending…but none of these changes were particularly distracting, unlike a movie I saw last Christmas…? I especially liked the way Howard added some digital effects so that we could see what was going through Langdon’s mind as he tried to crack the various codes…

Anyway, I thought it was a good movie.? From the perspective of someone who read the book and was interested in the subject matter, it was good.? If you haven’t read the book, or if you’re expecting some glorified action movie, then you may not…? It did have some suspenseful moments, but no truly crazy car chases or gun fights…although, there was a lot of running…

“The Da Vinci Code” is simply another good reason why you shouldn’t trust the critics in all matters…not that I do…ever…? 😛

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Sigh…

“There are people all over Rome dressed up like Romans!”

— Kristen

…time to get back in an American school, kiddo… 😛

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James T. Kirk rules!

So, I was watching The Late Show with David Letterman from Monday night (May 15, 2006) and, most specifically, Letterman’s interview with William Shatner…They didn’t talk about much besides Shatner’s horse ranch and his competitions, but towards the end, Dave asked about Shatner’s kidney stone. For those who don’t know, he had a kidney stone and, after he passed it, someone suggested that he sell it. The thing went for $75,000 grand (to a casino, I think…)… Apparently, Shatner used his $75,000 grand from the kidney stone, added it to the cash raised by the other “Boston Legal” cast members, and they donated $95,000 to Habitat for Humanity to build houses in Louisiana…

So…some lucky bastard in New Orleans is living in a house primarily paid for by Jim Kirk’s kidney stone…

Only in America, yo…

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It's about time…

…for another computer upgrade (that title, complete with “…”, is for you, Kai…). I’ve had my Shuttle motherboard running since late-Sophomore year when I started running Linux and Windows on separate systems…and I maxed out the processor to an Athlon XP 1900+ early in my Junior year… So yeah, essentially, I’ve been using the same hardware (with minor upgrades/replacements) for about 5 years. That’s an eternity in computer time, so I’m ready for an upgrade. Recently, I’ve noticed the system slowing down with every reformat and I’ve had yet another Maxtor hard drive go out, so I’m ready to make the jump.

Here are the specs I’ve been looking at, using Mwave‘s pricing for a barebones system:

  • Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Manchester) — $297.00
  • MSI K8N NEO4-F — $73.50
  • 1 GB DDR400 RAM (dual-channel 512 MB) — $83.00
  • NEC 16x DVD+/-RW — $38.90
  • Black Apex SQ-328 case (350W PS) — $41.00
  • Seagate 160 GB SATA 7200 RPM hard drive — $69.00
  • Gigabyte GeForce 7300GT PCIe 128 MB — $63.00

Total cost for the specs listed above comes out to a grand total of $665.40 using Mwave’s pricing and as of May 15, 2006. I’m assuming that the price will come down overall by the time I can buy this thing sometime mid- to late-summer. The processor, especially, should drop in price by the time I can afford this…and things like the motherboard, hard drive and video card probably will change. Honestly, I don’t really need much so far as video cards go, but I’d like to have something cheap yet capable for whatever I want to do with it in the coming years. I’d really like to get 2 GB of RAM in there running dual-channel ’cause I think the 64-bit dual core system would really like to use it, but that’ll depend on RAM prices… I’ll also have to figure out Linux drivers. This is an nForce4 chipset and I think it’s support is somewhat limited under Linux…

Anyway…suggestions? While I like Ubuntu a lot, I’d probably try Gentoo again initially so I’m sure that the 64-bit and dual core shenanigans are being used to their full potential, just to see how blazing fast I can run it…may switch back eventually…who knows…

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It’s about time…

…for another computer upgrade (that title, complete with “…”, is for you, Kai…). I’ve had my Shuttle motherboard running since late-Sophomore year when I started running Linux and Windows on separate systems…and I maxed out the processor to an Athlon XP 1900+ early in my Junior year… So yeah, essentially, I’ve been using the same hardware (with minor upgrades/replacements) for about 5 years. That’s an eternity in computer time, so I’m ready for an upgrade. Recently, I’ve noticed the system slowing down with every reformat and I’ve had yet another Maxtor hard drive go out, so I’m ready to make the jump.

Here are the specs I’ve been looking at, using Mwave‘s pricing for a barebones system:

  • Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Manchester) — $297.00
  • MSI K8N NEO4-F — $73.50
  • 1 GB DDR400 RAM (dual-channel 512 MB) — $83.00
  • NEC 16x DVD+/-RW — $38.90
  • Black Apex SQ-328 case (350W PS) — $41.00
  • Seagate 160 GB SATA 7200 RPM hard drive — $69.00
  • Gigabyte GeForce 7300GT PCIe 128 MB — $63.00

Total cost for the specs listed above comes out to a grand total of $665.40 using Mwave’s pricing and as of May 15, 2006. I’m assuming that the price will come down overall by the time I can buy this thing sometime mid- to late-summer. The processor, especially, should drop in price by the time I can afford this…and things like the motherboard, hard drive and video card probably will change. Honestly, I don’t really need much so far as video cards go, but I’d like to have something cheap yet capable for whatever I want to do with it in the coming years. I’d really like to get 2 GB of RAM in there running dual-channel ’cause I think the 64-bit dual core system would really like to use it, but that’ll depend on RAM prices… I’ll also have to figure out Linux drivers. This is an nForce4 chipset and I think it’s support is somewhat limited under Linux…

Anyway…suggestions? While I like Ubuntu a lot, I’d probably try Gentoo again initially so I’m sure that the 64-bit and dual core shenanigans are being used to their full potential, just to see how blazing fast I can run it…may switch back eventually…who knows…

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Year One: Complete

I took my last exam of the year this morning…was pretty obnoxious and relatively hard to tell how we all did. It certainly didn’t start out well, for any of us…So, this test was in my Special Topics class, where we read papers and discuss them and their importance. Last Thursday, we were told we likely weren’t going to have this test. We come in the following Monday to find out that we are having it now, much to our dismay… Anyway, the test was this morning…and it was an oral exam…i.e. the professor points to us, has us walk up to the board, and answer the question(s)… That part sucked royally, but it sucked for most everyone, so it’s not like any one person did that much worse than everyone else.

Regardless, that was it. One year of graduate school down. Three and a half to go. 😛 I’m very much looking forward to getting some research work done over the summer, without having classes to worry about…and I’m looking forward to only having pharmacology/physiology classes to take next semester, rather than having to learn biochemistry, immunology, metabolism, etc. anymore…

I’m also looking forward to, in the short term, doing mostly nothing for a weekend. Next weekend, B and I are going to Columbia for Susan’s wedding (congrats!) and then we’re going back over Memorial Day because Brooke’s aunt is having people over…so yeah, more busy weekends on the way… Hopefully I can concentrate on watching some movies this weekend that I’ve been meaning to…

Either way, classes are done. Now I’m a “Second Year.” w00t!