definite defenestration
Jan 2, 2006 @ 15:32
Happy New Year, everyone!
Well, I think the highlight of the trip to Chicago for New Years would probably be when Pam slapped the glasses off my face and they fell three stories straight down onto concrete. Miraculously, Pam found the rims and one lense intact, and Mike found the other... and it's as if nothing ever happened.
Now that's some fancy engineering.
I hadn't been to Shedd Aquarium since I was a child of three, so that was good times. The piranha had gotten smaller I think, but there were some otherwise excellent specimen. I especially enjoyed the sea slugs, jelly fish tank, and the huge moray eel. OOOH! And the Crabs! exhibit. The fiddler crabs were dancing just like that scene in The Life Aquatic. We had very limited time so we pretty much ran through the whole thing going "Oh awesome! Gross! Black Beard's Cave! Oh, scary! Awesome you guys, awesoooooome!" I don't think the whole aquarium has been observed so quickly in its entire history. We also went to the dolphin show, which was a bit lame. However, their new indoor lakeside amphitheater was, as an understatement, spectacular. You sit there, surrounded by faux rock and pine, and there's a big dolphin pool right in front of you that appears to extend right out through the massive glass facade that separates you from the most gorgeous view of Lake Michigan. We were there just after sunset as well, so the internal reflection of water on glass further blurred the Lake from the dolphin tank with a wavering mirage. I could have sat in there just looking out into the foggy water, with the horizon lost in the clouds and light houses blinking, the rest of the year and then some. I told one of the employees that they should open up in the morning for sunrise. The sun rises in the east, right over the lake. Actually, I was in Chicago for the Millenium New Year celebration, and I watched the first sunrise of the millenium rise red over the water.
I might blog some more later, but then again, blogging is so two-thousand and five!
i forgot
Dec 30, 2005 @ 17:03
i am on road to chicago. technology is awesome. i forgot this link.
old (sic) lang syne
Dec 30, 2005 @ 00:32
It's a pun, you see.
New Year's 2005
New Year's 2004 (also in Chicago!)
Or, wait, is this year New Year's 2006? Do you forward date New Year's?
chicago, here I come
Dec 30, 2005 @ 00:26
When you get deja vu, it means you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing at that exact moment.
Let's just say I got it.
I'll be offline til Sunday night. See you next year.
another quiz
Dec 29, 2005 @ 10:25
Lucky you! You are a BOMBSHELL AMONG BOMBSHELLS,
Marilyn Monroe. You are the ultimate woman.
You've got style, class, sex appeal and most of all "the look". You are every man's dream girl, no matter what era. You're the essence of everything feminine and sexy, but are a little ditzy at times. All you need is some red lipstick and some Chanel #5 and you've got it made. Watch Marilyn float across the screen in "The Seven Year Itch" to see how a little bit of body language goes a long way!
Who is your inner bombshell?
stealing jesse's thunder (x2)
Dec 29, 2005 @ 09:51
If you don't read Jesse's Blog, then you really missed out on this gem in the comments:
http://keithschofield.com/pi/std.html
Wow. Just wow.
Wow!
wow
dora the explorer's death
Dec 27, 2005 @ 19:33
Ahhhhh, Christmas at the Xopls' house. Out there in the [southernmost part of the] North Woods of Wisconsin. I ate so much that I must have shat about three or four squirrels. No lie.
My niece got a complete spread of Dora the Explorer toys. The house, the van, all the friends and family. Each piece stamped out in high density plastics.
My nephew got, among many, many other things, a full line of dinosaurs. (I'm not sure from what movie or whatever, but surely something.) Every one of them had a cool dino-action and a built in noise. The brontosaurus stomped it's foot with a stomping noise. The pterodactyl flapped it's wings. The paulasaurus drank. Then there was also this big T-rex, whose dino-action was to lunge it's head and neck forward and downward, while snapping it's jaws, finished off with a roar. Pretty impressive.
I wanted to reinact the entire Jurassic Park T-rex sequence with the T-rex toy and the Dora the Explorer dolls and van. That would have been great on film. My niece was standing over by her doll house, with a complete line of Dora the Explorer personalities hanging out as if nothing was wrong. As if it were yet another perfectly pink day in the culturally diverse plastic universe.
Little did they know a monster was lurking near by! With a few jumps, and a few sound effects of my own making, T-rex scaled the roof of the house, pouncing onto the crowd below, devouring several with his dino-action. The whole scene unfolded right in front of my not-quite-two-yet niece, and ended with an electronic roar.
I gotta say she looked a bit upset. But only a bit, and only for a millisecond. She clearly only just was beginning to grasp the concepts she will need later in life to understand the horror show that had just transpired in front of her. Some quick smiles and laughter on my part immediately were matched by her in kind.
She's probably still scarred for life.
Highlights as far as swag include a subscription to Nat'l Geographic, something I would have never thought of for myself, but is probably my favourite present in years. Also, an LED belt buckle. Each message can be 512 characters max. Incidentally, that arbitrary number is exactly the max string length in the BASIC programming language. I'm sure this is no coincidence as programmable BASIC EEPROMS are fairly common in these kinds of geek electronics.
Oh, I also picked up Stratego, which is perhaps my new favourite board game. There's so much strategy to learn yet! Exciting!
And then I came home. The End.