Month: November 2006
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What’s shakin’?
Yes, I’m aware I haven’t posted much here on chuggnutt.com lately. I’ve been focusing most of my writing energy on The Brew Site and Hack Bend recently, since I keep thinking of topical things for those blogs and I really don’t want to become a caricature of myself with “Lost” rants.
Aside from that, here’s a loosely-presented list of things that have been happening:
Thanksgiving was very nice, and low-key. We did the expected big dinner at my parents’ house, though we weren’t a big crowd. We made some excellent pumpkin pies with a gingerbread graham cracker crust. (Gingerbread graham crackers. Seriously. Rachael Ray is on the box.)
I hung outdoor Christmas lights on the house the day after Thanksgiving. The cold air gave me a bit of a cold.
The day after that consisted of generously picking up weary travelers Shannon and Brian from the Redmond Airport; Shannon confessed a creepy desire to pummel saguaro cacti. Whack job.
:)The two recent books I’ve read/are reading are Stephen Baxter’s Manifold: Time and Manifold: Space. I think Time is the better written of the two, where he actually builds characterizations (mostly; he’s not as strong here as some writers) for his cast, whereas in Space they feel more like mouthpieces or conveniences. Maybe he just got lazy, since he’s sort of continuing the main character’s story, and didn’t feel necessary to rehash… or not. I don’t know. They’re full of interesting concepts, nonetheless.
When I get a chance (which isn’t often), I’ve been thoroughly enjoying “Secret Weapons Over Normandy” for the PlayStation 2. That game completely rocks. I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I do; I think a big part of that is the relatively simple controls used.
(Yes, that’s me: I need simple video game controls. I’m retro that way.)
Anything else? Um… working. Nothing interesting to report there.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving is a good one. We’re baking pumpkin pies today (made with a gingerbread graham cracker crust) and heading out to my folks’ house for dinner and family. Enjoy the long weekend!
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About those people waiting in line for a PS3…
Something I don’t really get about those people (mostly young?) waiting—no, camping—in line for days outside of stores like Best Buy for the PlayStation 3… Do they not have jobs, that they can take the time to spend a week camping out at a store? And if they don’t have jobs, how can they afford to buy something as expensive as the PS3 (at $600)?
Of course, I don’t get why people would camp out for movie premieres, either. YMMV.
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Obligatory Lost post
I’m starting to think I’m becoming a parody of myself with these “Lost” posts. I’m also thinking about coining a new phrase: “to pull a Lost.” It should be self-evident what I mean by that, but: to start out strong, have everything going your way… and then blow it. Which seems to be what they’re doing.
Actually, last night’s episode was better than it has been this season… mostly. I’ll get into that below after the obligatory spoiler warning…
Here there be spoilers!
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The truth about vampires
I realize I’m about a week late blogging this item (should have been around Halloween), but I just can’t resist: Count Dracula not in the numbers, physicist says. A scientist is playing Scully to scientifically disprove the existence of monsters—vampires, zombies, ghosts, and so on.
Articles like this make me amused and irritated at the same time. I always get a kick of out it when a goofy, kooky topic like this shows up in the “serious” mainstream news, but it annoys me when they purport to have The Answer to things and get their science and logic wrong.
Case in point: his proof against the existence of vampires is flawed:
[Costas] Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person’s blood each month — turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire — after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 million humans on January 1, 1600 and shows that the human population would be down to zero by July 1602.
Now I’m not saying that vampires do exist, but that’s weak. Yes, you’ve shown us that repeatedly doubling a number increases it exponentially very quickly, but this “proof” is hardly proof. First of all, why the assumption that vampires always make more vampires? If the vampire doesn’t kill you outright, then you become a vampire. I think it’s up to the “source” vampire. No exponential increase.
Second, couldn’t some of these vampires be feeding on animals instead of humans? (Digression: wouldn’t vampire cows be funny?)
Third, I’m sure vampires are reasonably intelligent enough to have figured out that if they keep making vampires, there’s no more food left. I imagine they plan accordingly.
Fourth, where did this “one person per month” figure come from? That seems rather arbitrary.
So his reasoning is flawed. I think he would be better off arguing against the more implausible vampire myths, such as the physical impossibility of their not casting reflections in mirrors.
Or, you know, doing real science.
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Lost A-Team mashup
I love this video mashup of Lost and The A-Team. I might even like it better than the actual third season of “Lost” so far!
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Protolariat
This entry stems entirely from a gross misspelling/mishandling of the word “proletariat” on my part. “Protolariat” is not a real word; if you search for it nothing comes up. What better opportunity to create a new word and be the only search engine result for it?
:)So, what should the definition be? I’m thinking something along the lines of:
- An incomplete model of string theory
- A poorly-executed or work-in-progress “Web 2.0” site; possibly derogatory. “Friendster is a real protolariat”
- Mushroom juice
- A long piece of rope with a knot at one end
Coining new words with the power of the internet!
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Kids + illness + birthday = entirely too busy
The “illness” referred to in the title above is our daughter’s; she isn’t seriously sick but has this cough that really kicks in after she’s been asleep for a few hours, and this happens two or three times a night. It really sucks to have your sleep punctured every couple of hours to go administer meds or water or whatever.
Anyway. It was also our daughter’s birthday weekend, so we were running around a lot getting things ready and such. The birthday party went really well, so that’s good. Thankfully they seem to get easier as the kids get older and more autonomous. No need to give the little ones booze and sleep it off anymore.
I’m kidding. (Or am I?)
The only hitch was two kids didn’t get picked up; turns out the mom who was supposed to be picking them up went to the wrong place. Fortunately, we had our minivan and cellphones, so we were able to take the extra kids to where they needed to be. That may well have been the first time we’ve carpooled…
Anyway, I’ll try to get back to my regular blogging schedule. Which hasn’t been very “regular” of late, I know. I’ll get right on that… sometime…
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More Lost braindump
No, this won’t be quite the rant I did last week, just thoughts since watching tonight’s episode of “Lost.” In particular I thought tonight’s Eko-centric episode was far better than last week’s, but most of this is just braindump. Maybe some ranting. And oh yeah, huge spoilers.
Huge spoilers ahead, don’t say I didn’t warn you…