Wish You Were Here

Although the London presentation bordered on the surreal, when the acrobats floated in the midst of the stadium all I could think of was, "Lastday, Capricorn 27. Carousel begins. Renew!"

The cinematic for the World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King expansion is now online at:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/intro.xml

Neat in a storyline narrative sort of way, but I would have liked one with an emphasis on the player characters.

In other Warcraft news, I finally raided Gruul's Lair with my shadow priest and seem to have hit on a marginal raiding schedule. Hopefully school won't completely cut into my playtime this semester.

After several years of loyal service and approximately 14000 photos, my trusty Canon A40 has begin to fail. As a result, I am in need of a new point and shoot camera. I would like something small enough to fit into a jacket pocket, and certainly under 150$ as that's about what I can afford. Even so, I likely won't be able to purchase the camera until September when I start my assistantship again. It's not an expense that I'm particularly enthused about, but snapping pictures is something I enjoy and keeping a record of my adventure in college is worth a few weeks of ramen.

Does anyone have suggestions or comments on cameras that they own? I have been looking at the Kodak m763 as the price is right, but its new enough that there are very few reviews. I take a LOT of photos and take my camera nearly everywhere, from oil rigs to art museums, so decent picture quality and sturdiness are a must.

To say that it was a difficult semester for me would be quite an understatement. The final five weeks of the term I essentially lived at school, even sleeping at my office as I pulled long hours and a few all-nighters. Once I handed in my final seminar papers, I had to finish grading the class I TA'ed, and then I had to turn my attention to finding a new domicle, as all the stress of the final weeks came wrapped up in being dispossessed.

As such, it was almost surreal to visit Ikea and go see Iron Man with disorted. Iron Man was fantastic to be sure, but since others have covered it, I'll just add my recommendation. Go see it.

What really made the experience almost unreal was that it was the first night out I'd had in a very long time, without the concerns of a deadline or paper over my head like a sword of Damocles. It was something that I had always taken for granted, but just to relax and have a nice night doing something as simple as a movie was a surprising experience.

Although I do have some tasks to attend to over the summer, not the least of which is finding some gainful employment and settling on a thesis, there are things I sacrificed in favor of school I'd like to enjoy, like watching Doctor Who, cooking and few other projects.

I do love what I'm studying and I enjoy the entire graduate experience, but this has been the absolute roughest semester I've had. No fun, all stress, long hours, seven all nighters, continual deadlines and two seminar papers to turn in. I just handed in my last paper, and except for submitting the grades for the class I TA, it's sweet, sweet freedom.

Now, with my sweet, sweet freedom...I have to work on my thesis.

Doh.

24 pages in, and on my third all-nighter in six days, just like French General Henri Navarre, I believe I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, just like Navarre, I'm pretty sure it's a train full of Viet Minh.

Gareth David Lloyd, aka Ianto Jones from Torchwood, is coming to Dragon*con 2008. Torchwood has been one of (if not my most) favorite shows in the past two years (and never mind that its been one of only two shows I've been able to watch in that time) so I'm very looking forward to getting his autograph--which is a rarity for me.

As per Phantomess27's command...

Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 random things, facts, goals, or habits about yourself. At the end, choose anyone you think may answer - to be tagged, listing their names & why you chose them. Don't forget to leave them a comment (you're it!) and to read your blog for instructions. You can't tag a person who has tagged you.

1. I once swam in Loch Ness, and I caught a cold. My brother said it was from monster germs.
2. I don't watch TV anymore. This is a massive change from two years ago, when I knew the day by what show was on. I used to have CNN on all the time, now I just read the New York Times. I still try to catch something that really interests me, like The Sarah Connor Chronicles or Torchwood, but online or through DVDs. It's not from any kind of feeling of cultural superiority that I eschew TV, I simply don't have spare time anymore.
3. I'm a fan of Arsenal, which started off as simply pulling for the Gunners against Chelsea while watching a game in a bar to annoy my friend Sara.
4. I haven't seen my dad in close to a year due to school obligations.
5. I fenced in my undergraduate days, and I was pretty decent. Although I didn't have size, I did have good speed, infighting and technical ability.
6. I love photography, but have little time to pursue it.
7. At the moment, I have 86 books checked out from the UCF library.
8. I'd like to get my doctorate in 5 years.
9. I'm on campus from 8am to 1am some days, 11am to 2am most others.
10. My middle name is Octavius.

Tagging: Anybody!

Reading the New York Times, I came across an article on patches used by the military for secret projects. Nearly every project has an associated patch, some official, some not. While the projects the patches belonged to were highly secret, the patches themselves often entered into the public arena. Although nearly all the patches were interesting in one way or another, I was particularly amused by this one:



The best guess of the author is that it belongs to the B-2 Spirit test program, and later used unofficially by the bomb wing. As the testing was done near Roswell, the implications behind the patch are apparent. The Latin at the bottom is a rather tortured, "Tastes Like Chicken."

Never let it be said the military was without humor.

About a year and a half ago I posted about the enduring mystery of the HMAS Sydney, the largest warship lost without a trace in World War II. I've been following the efforts to find the ship, including some ludicrous claims to have found the ship alongside the the wreck of a Japanese carrier by the use of satellite imaging, and another groups late 2007 claim to have found the ship in shallow water. On March 16, a team found the wreck off the coast of Australia in 2500 meters of water. Photos from a sub show the ship to be relatively intact, and eventually the work will begin to try and determine why there were no survivors from a crew of 645, despite over 300 Germans being rescued from the Kormoran, the raider that engaged the Sydney.



It might seem academic, but the lure of a mystery is one that has fascinated humanity for all time, and as the world gets smaller, there are precious few mysteries left. Family members of the Sydney crew will have answers, and one more ending gets to be written.

Schoolwork has resulted in a severe crunch on time the last few months, to the point where my extra-circular activites have been seriously curtailed. Movies, Warcraft, anime, gaming: all have gone by the wayside while I pursue the research and work needed to write my seminar papers. However, staring at Early English Books Online for hours on end tends to make one feel a lil loopy. In random internet browsing some time ago I came across references to an online game called Kingdom of Loathing. In between tracts on how terrible the English believed the Irish to be, I decided to check it out. It's a browser based game, so there is nothing to download, and it has a rather quirky and funny storyline. The best part about it, for me, is that it limits you to a certain number of actions (adventures) per day, so you can only play for a short time at most. It's enough to get some things done, yet short enough to make you look forward to the next session.

www.kingdomofloathing.com

My character's name is Mereth, if you decide to play drop me an in-game mail.

In other developments, UCF came in second to Michigan State in the Wii NCAA 2009 poll, which is disappointing, but for a school that is only now starting to make some waves in Division IA its quite impressive, considering the caliber of the competition. Knightro would have looked much better on the cover than that Spartan.

UCF's mascot, Knightro, is in the running to make the cover of EA's NCAA 2009 game. The mascot that will make the cover will be selected by vote, and Knightro is currently third. You can vote once a day until Friday, so take 10 seconds to vote for Knightro. No other Florida school is in the top 10, so it won't tarnish your school spirit if you go to another state school. If that isn't enough, then perhaps unmitigated hatred for Auburn, Michigan State or any of the other top nine schools will convince you to click for UCF.

Click the vote now button, select Conference USA, and then Knightro. They have the older design on the website, but it will be the newer Knightro that would be used for the cover art.

http://www.easports.com/ncaa09/home.jsp

You can vote once a day!

Despite having only played the previous game in the series for about an hour total, Super Smash Brothers Brawl in now on the Wii here at home, which does not bode well for the research paper I have to write.

In other news, a quote from the magical loudspeaker woman at MegaCon I found amusing:

"Will the person who took the stack of Iron Man posters please return them. They are ONE per guest."

For hundreds of hours staring at graph paper, for the little lead figures that still sit on my desk to this day, for the beat up rulebooks and funny stories, like the time my friend Bill had his Minotaur fighter run straight at a wall to embed his horns in order to avoid falling as the floor slid away, for whole weekends wasted away in my undergraduate days with pizza and friends.

I found this dedication on the front page of a book I'm reading for my paper quite amusing:


IN MEMORY OF MY DEVOTED VCR, SONY SLV-420

July 20 1994 - December 29 2000

Without which this book could not have been written.

Tragically, within three months of the completion of this manuscript,
the gallant machine passed away while attempting to record
eighteen hours of a Star Trek marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel


The book is on television reflecting cultural fears and suspicions, including a chapter on Star Trek VI as a Cold War metaphor incorporating Francis Fukuyama's theory of the "End of History."

In an esoteric confluence of genres, I was flipping through a book called "Four Arguments For the Elimination of Television" for a paper I'm writing when I came across a chapter entitled "BLACK MESA." The first line of the chapter explained how the author had recently left a company named FREEMAN to visit BLACK MESA due to a native American movement occuring at the time.

Curious.

Although I'm deep in writing and research, I took a little time to catch up on the Terminator TV show online tonight. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns in the last three episodes. I'd write up a longer review/opinion, but schoolwork beckons. Anyone else watching this show?

The Academy Awards are this Sunday night, and I figured it would be fun to see who in LJ land could proven themselves the champion at Oscar predictions. The list of nominees is behind the cut. Copy and paste it in your reply marking your choice in each category.

Comments are screened.

( And the nominees are... )

A few weeks ago I posted about a lunar eclipse set to occur. However, I mistakenly said it was going to occur that particular week, when in fact it going to happen today, Wednesday the 20th of February.

Totality for the eclipse is due to begin at about 10pm EST and last until about 10:51pm.