Last post in Houston for now. The nice thing about staying in Houston has been just relaxing without much need for a scary agenda. Couple days ago my Dad & I rode the MT Bike trails up at Double Lake. It was much less strenuous then at Memorial Park, but still fun. I got to use Dad's really nice dual-suspension bike, which made riding much easier - but the tiny seat dug into my ABC like nobody's business. Double Lake is in the Sam Houston National Forrest - which is a piney Forrest. As a result - the trials are covered in this half shadow-like patten which makes is really difficult to read the terrain. I fell flat on my face and vaulted the handlebars when my pedal strap caught on a root and the bike stopped instantaneously. Nice.


That night we went over to one of Spencer's friend's house for a party. Texas Hold'um $5 buy-in... I didn't go out first but I also lost by a big margin. Spencer actually won. Bastard. Day after that we got up (late and hungover) and went home for a while. Then we went to borrow some firearms and headed out to the range in Pasadena. Spencer was in rare form:



So we spent a couple hours blowing off some steam. Between the Savage 30-06, a couple AK's, the 44 carbine, and Dad's 22 - my shoulder got a workout. I did O.K. on shooting groups w/ the Savage (1" groups from 30yrds), but the AK is mostly about trying to sustain a good firing pattern as you rip through the 30 rnd magazine...and those suckers are loud (7.62X39.. big bullets make big booms). The gas-blowback makes it really really easy to keep your eye on the target; it's not hard to figure out why those rifles are so popular. Good times. It's hard to describe why it's so satisfying - it just is.

I look so surprised because I'm trying to focus....

Bur right now I'm pumped about New Year's eve with Stacey (Tropical theme?)! A whole week to goof off with her! Yay! Gotta appreciate this time because soon I'll be buried in school projects again - so playing hard now will help me work hard later.

Merry Christmas to all. Just finished doing the dishes from the main feast of the day... so every one's getting ready to spend the rest of the evening doing nothing in particular. The meal was awesome (Roast duck, parsley corn souffle courtesy of yours truly, steamed broccoli, hot rolls.... and lots of wine); everyone was pleased with their presents (I got a year's subscription to Make Magazine and a really cool wine-opener set licensed by Lego...yay!)... holiday success.

I wrote an .m file to occupy some time a few days ago. Basically it compares the vector forces on the earth's surface due to the Earth's gravitation and the Moon's gravitation (and also as a function of the Moon's position). I'm not going to post the code, but I'll post some graphs. Ideally, it makes AVI files but I couldn't get the output function to work on the DACS version of Matlab ... so maybe I'll post those later.

... Look carefully: this is a vector plot!

... finally, the result force (combined Earth & Moon). The vector lengths aren't to scale; the Moon force is actually six orders of magnitude smaller than the Earth force (which makes sense) - so the vectors had to be scaled for dramatic effect on the graph.

Not sure what I'm going to spend my X-Mas check on... yet.

Got my grades this morning - not as good as I'd hoped for. But hey, we're been over this, right? No big deal. I had a nice morning/early afternoon running errands with Mom. Mostly Christmas shopping and picking up items across town. It's really put me in the spirit of things.... and now a shameless re-printing of a hilarious piece written by Lore Sjöberg from wired magazine:

From: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenzer@dickensripoff.com)
To: Robert Cratchit (bobc@dickensripoff.com)
Subject: A Web Christmas Carol

Damn it, Bob, it's Dec. 20 and you still haven't finished your project! When I ask for an anime/machinima version of A Christmas Carol set to an OK Go song, I expect to see it well before Christmas! Your vacation request is denied. The maintenance staff is turning off the heat before they leave, so if you don't want to spend Christmas in a down jacket editing video, you'd better get to work!

- - -

From: Jacob Marley (jakethesnake@reallydeadjournal.com)
To: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenezer@dickensripoff.com)
Subject: i wear the chains i forged in life

hi ebbie just giving u a heads up some ghosts were asking about u and i gave them ur email hope thats okay lol

being dead sucks :-(
meery christmas :-)

- - -

From: The Ghost of Christmas Carol Spoofs Past (goccsp@temporalghosts.net)
To: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenezer@dickensripoff.com)
Subject: Christmas Carol Spoofs Past

Ebenezer! Ebenezer! Do you have any freaking idea how old Dickens' A Christmas Carol is? It was written LAST CENTURY! Wait, no, the century before the last one. TWO CENTURIES AGO! ALMOST! Think about how corny Ewok jokes are. Ewoks have only been around for 20 years or so! Think of how much lamer they'll be in the 22nd century! Seriously, dude, lay off. It's played out.

- - -

From: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenezer@dickensripoff.com)
To: The Ghost of Christmas Carol Spoofs Past (goccsp@temporalghosts.net)
Subject: unsubscribe

Please remove me from your mailing list.

- - -

From: The Ghost of Christmas Carol Spoofs Present (goccsp2@temporalghosts.net)
To: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenezer@dickensripoff.com)
Subject: Hi!

Hi, Ebenezer! Nice to meet you! Could you please do me a little favor? Go to Amazon's DVD section and enter Christmas Carol. I got 80 results! Wow! That's a lot! Did you know there's a Muppet Christmas Carol AND a Sesame Street Christmas Carol? I thought Sesame Street was Muppets already! And there's one with Bugs Bunny and one with Mickey Mouse and one with All Dogs Go to Heaven.... I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who want to see a spoof of A Christmas Carol already have a lot of choices, so when you think about it, you really don't need to throw another on the pile. See?

XOXO,
Prezzie

- - -

From: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenezer@dickensripoff.com)
To: The Ghost of Christmas Carol Spoofs Present (goccsp2@temporalghosts.net)
Subject: reported

I have reported your spamming to your ISP. Do not bother me again.

- - -

From: The Ghost of Christmas Carol Spoofs Future (thescary1@temporalghosts.net)
To: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenezer@dickensripoff.com)
Subject: HARROWING VISIONS

EBENEZER! IF YOU DO NOT MEND YOUR WAYS, SEE WHAT WILL BECOME OF A ONCE-BELOVED TALE! THE WEB WILL BECOME CHOKED WITH LAME AMATEUR VERSIONS FEATURING BAD IMITATIONS OF FLAVOR-OF-THE-MONTH CELEBRITIES! THIS WILL TURN PEOPLE OFF OF CHRISTMAS ENTIRELY! BILL O'REILLY WILL GET SO MAD THAT HE'LL SHOOT A FOREIGN DIGNITARY, STARTING A WORLD WAR!

WORST OF ALL, PEOPLE WILL START DOING IRONIC VERSIONS OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL THAT ARE ACTUALLY ABOUT HOW MANY VERSIONS OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL THERE ARE!

- - -

From: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenezer@dickensripoff.com)
To: The Ghost of Christmas Carol Spoofs Future (thescary1@temporalghosts.net)
Subject: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

You have made me see the error of my ways, O Ghost With a Broken Caps Lock Key! I swear that I will never create another spoof of A Christmas Carol again, and that I will start pointless flame wars with people who do! Thank you for helping me to see the truth!

- - -

From: Ebenezer Scrooge (ebenzer@dickensripoff.com)
To: Robert Cratchit (bobc@dickensripoff.com)
Subject: Cancel the project

I've changed my mind, Bob. Stop all work on "A Web Christmas Carol" immediately. It was a bad idea all along.

Instead, I want you to get right to work on "A Web Twelve Days of Christmas." I expect to see it done by the 25th, so you might want to buy a new down jacket.

- - -

P.S. Blog - Muppet Christmas Carol is awesome. I cry every time they make you think Tiny Tim dies.



Only 5 more shopping days until Christmas! Hope you're almost done.....

Home in Houston. It feels very normal to be here... nothing really all that abnormal or different. My parents are both thrilled to have me here; I think very much I get my way with words from them so it's interesting to speak with them at length.

Yesterday was fun - I landed in Houston around 1 Houston time, and just went home. Spencer took me with him to go pick up Matt on the west side.... and it's always fun to take a ride in the pimpmobile. Dad went with the three of us to a Gun Show out in Pasadena... which is a helluva long way away. Spencer's turned into quite the firearms aficionado - I think he's going to take me trapshooting in a couple days.

So far I'm just happy to chill. I might go see Ardy, or maybe go over to Caryn's place. My Mom wants to take a look at the benefits package information for the companies I'm interviewing with... so it's nice she's looking out for me.

We just got home from a brief trip out in the rain to get a Christmas Tree... tonight it's decorating time. So all's well here. Eating snacks...drinking beer.... I can't wait to get my grades.

More randomosity. Does your computer sit, turned on all day, practically unused? Do you have a permanent internet connection? Do you want to contribute something to the scientific community and feel better about yourself without having to lift a finger? Then have I got something for you...

Some some computer science students at the University of Oxford are interested in random numbers achieved by throwing dice. If all the sides of the die are equal, and if the thing has uniform side lengths, the outcomes will be truly random. But what if those conditions aren't true? They're exploring how changing the side lengths impacts the outcome of the die roll through experiment, mathematical analysis, and "exhaustive computer simulation". But! They're counting on the generosity of people to donate their computer's unused processing time to help calculate. So! Go to the site! Download the program! Run it in the background! My PC cranks out roughly 100,000 simulations per day (which is but a tiny drop in the bucket when compared with the 4.6 billion user-submitted simulation results thus far... I'm only ranked number 105 out of 231 for the number of sims submitted...). So there you go - you, too can help further the knowledge of mankind. They will only be accepting results for another 2 weeks, though - so get on it!



In other news... I've decided to upload John's CFD results for our 315 project to YouTube. They turned out really well. The cool thing is that his code captures both the fluid velocity and the fluid temperature - both of which we were interested in for the project. Check 'em out:

Video One - near the entrance/heater

Video Two - at the exit

What was my contribution to the project? About 500 lines of matlab code to run academic simulations based on "textbook equations". CFD is like a magic genie in a bottle - you just input your system and boundary conditions and it spits out the result. I had to actually write my own simulations...

Anyway my Heat/Mass final was yesterday and that went fine. Not great...but fine. I have my second final on Saturday, so I'll be cramming for the next two days. Hooray. The guys and I are opening presents to each other Friday night... I wonder what I get this year. I'm feeling pretty mellow as of late - I'm ready for vacation, and I'm ready to get my grades.

Allright. This has been an astonishing day - much to report. Just finished the code for my X-mas cards this year:

% XMAS CARD - JOEY GERONDALE
% 12/9/06

% INITIALIZE
clc
clear all
load rand1
num=randn;
format long
width=520*2; %picture size width in pixels
height=339*2; %picture size height in pixels
hblock=12; %desired number of vertical blocks
wblock=18; %desired number of horiz blocks

% CALCULATE
wdr=ceil(width/wblock); %number of horiz pixels per block
hdr=ceil(height/hblock); %number of vert pixels per block

pic=zeros(height,width,3);

for k=1:hblock
for r=1:wblock
tt=clock;
rand('state',floor(tt(6)*1000-50*rand(1)*k-25*rand(1)*r))
if(num(floor(10000*rand(1))))>127.5 % choose red bias
rd_st=(floor(9999*rand(1)));
gr_st=(floor(9999*rand(1)));
bl_st=(floor(9999*rand(1)));
while num(rd_st)<120>255
rd_st=rd_st+1;
end
while num(gr_st)<0>20
gr_st=gr_st+1;
end
while num(bl_st)<0>60
bl_st=bl_st+1;
end
red=num(rd_st)/256;
green=num(gr_st)/256;
blue=num(bl_st)/256;
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),1)=red; %assign red
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),2)=green; %assign green
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),3)=blue; %assign blue
else %choose green bias
rd_st=(floor(9999*rand(1)));
gr_st=(floor(9999*rand(1)));
bl_st=(floor(9999*rand(1)));
while num(rd_st)<0>80
rd_st=rd_st+1;
end
while num(gr_st)<110>190
gr_st=gr_st+1;
end
while num(bl_st)<0>60
bl_st=bl_st+1;
end
red=num(rd_st)/256;
green=num(gr_st)/256;
blue=num(bl_st)/256;
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),1)=red; %assign red
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),2)=green; %assign green
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),3)=blue; %assign blue
end
end
end

% OUTPUT

imwrite(pic,'xmascrd30.jpeg','jpeg')

So I just finished running the thing 30 times (so you can all get a unique card, of course) and I'm off to Wal-mart to print them off. This isn't extremely interesting or complex (it's a variation on an idea from an earlier post) - but I want to thank Alex for helping me figure out the flaws in my logic. Now it works!

Peace.

OK. I've already spent all day on the computer so I'll make this fast. The submarine competition was pretty freakin' sweet. The subs had a couple of mission statements:
1) Have ability to drive forward/back/side to side on surface
2) Have ability to dive underwater... and have same control
3) Pick up 3 lb metal cube "payload" from bottom of pool and retrieve it

Here's a brief description of the 4 teams and their performance:
A) Seawolves

You can see the highly segmented design. Extremely complex - they used a pair of counter-rotating propellers to cancel out the roll torque. This team's design has two ballast tanks which can be pressurized with water or depressurized with reserve air. Basically it performs like it looks it will: it had great speed but didn't turn worth a crap. The also employed a really interesting payload recovery mechanism.

B) 20,000 M.E.'s Under the Sea

Performed essentially like a boat on the surface. The ballast tanks are either completely full or completely empty - so it either really floats or REALLY sinks. Overall the best driving performance, but it didn't have any of the cool features the other ones did.

C) Submarine 9

Interesting design: the ballast tank is a concentric cylinder around the sealed inner compartment which contains the important stuff: radios/motors/ballast pumps. Unfortunately - it entered the water only once for about 10 seconds. Long enough to flood the main component tank and short out the radios. Nice. They also didn't employ the trailing antennae method the other teams did - so they couldn't get any signal below about 4 ft. of water depth.

D) Sharkmouth (I don't know the real team name - but it's obvious why I call it that)


I think this team had the coolest design. Essentially symmetric front-to-rear, this model has naturally neutral buoyancy - so what drives it up and down are the twin vertical ducted fans in the nose and tail. It also has the propulsion motors on extended booms, so it really turns on a dime. Their payload retrieval mechanism is just a giant hook. After the payload is grabbed - they can blow reserve ballast in the nose & tail cones to offset the new weight addition and rise to the surface. Initially it had the best performance by far, but it turns out that having the propulsion so far out made it really unstable, so it was difficult to control. Overall, though - this design was best at all the control aspects: going/stopping, turning, and rising/falling in the water.

What about the payload? Well all the teams eventually had technical difficulties so they quit before getting that far - but it was still about an hour and a half of presentations/competition.

My senior design will be way cooler than this stuff..... but in general I'm pretty impressed with their efforts.

A brief retrospective. All this stuff happened prior to my last blog entry, I just didn't have time to throw it in there. It's a lazy Saturday - I should be studying for Heat/Mass, but instead I'm blowing off steam on the internet....

First off, I spent the better part of a month working on a birthday present for Spencer (but it wasn't posted here... in case he reads....). I got the idea from a makezine project: hovercraft!!! So I decided it would be awesome to improve on the original design by using the parts from the RC car we shredded (and decided not to use) for the ME 444 project. I had a couple DC motors and the RC circuit/controller sitting around. I spent some time in the electronics shop figuring out what input/output voltages the circuit was using (so I could replace the supplied battery pack with a smaller, lighter version) and I got to work. Here's the alpha model:


And the motor did spin up just fine!! But the circuit only delivers about 1.3 V to the motor, so it's a little bit slower. Result: it doesn't lift off the ground :( bummer. But, it has to lift the weight of the circuit and the balsa housing, so I decided to make a lighter beta model:


Which also didn't have enough thrust to lift off....but it was closer. This one also delivers the full 2.3 V from the 2 AA battery pack to the motor (so it spins a LOT faster than the alpha), and it ONLY delivers thrust in the vertical direction (as you can see from the ducting). So that was kind of depressing that a soon-to-graduate ME can't make a damn hovercraft fly, but in hindsight it was because of over-engineering (too much mass from glue, other parts...) that did it. But I did put in cool features like: they use the same battery pack, and they both have on/off switches soldered in, so I'm pleased with the effort. They look cool and he was glad to get them, so it's not all bad.

My job interview in Kohler was pretty sweet. They have a very professional staff there - I met with engineering managers twice my age - basically the people I would be working for. They were all very positive, and open to the way I presented myself. They do some really interesting stuff there. Big opportunities for innovation and exploration there. The whole town is pretty cool - it's very 1920's industrial besides basically being a resort (Mr. Kohler has more money than Donald Trump!!):


Because it's in rural Wisconsin AND on the lake, there's a ton of recreational stuff I could do. If I lived there: I'd buy a sailboat, go hunting every winter, and take up golf (Mr. Kohler has two PGA quality courses in the town that any Kohler employee can play for $24). And also - probably not a big shot at getting continuing education... I'm trying to convince Stace we could live on the north side of Milwaukee so she can go to UWM or Marquette (I want my masters, too!!). Maybe we could live near the city when we're young, then move out to the country later... I dunno. Anyway you cut it - it looks like a cool place to live.

The Whirlpool interview went pretty well, too. First off - the rental car people upgraded me for free...so I was riding in style to St. Jo (about half an hour N.E. from Gary, IN):


Yeah. I know, right? Definitely the most expensive car I've ever driven. The headquarters is pretty serious business, too:


But St. Jo is known for its beaches, and I'd want to live in town there if I got the job. It's very quaint:

Honestly, I don't have the slightest idea what I'd be doing if I worked for Whirlpool. They didn't spend any time talking about the opportunities there - they spent all their time finding out about me. I was mostly interviewed by 20-somethings... there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't really feel like I got to see a complete picture of what they have to offer.

My B&M interview was also really interesting. They are involved in some reeaallly cool stuff. I feel like I could be a really well-respected professional if I work there (they basically require you to get your P.E. within 3 years...so I meant that literally). The work would be really technical and yet always varying. My presentation went well (it's a consulting company - so they want to see if you can handle yourself in front of a crowd), and each of the division managers was extremely polite and direct with me. I also brought my Delta design notebook, so hopefully that gave them a glimpse of the my problem solving style. I wish I had some pictures of the place, it's in a huge industrial complex - sitting on top of an underground parking facility which requires RFID tags to enter. There's security everywhere. They're pretty tip-top. BUT! I was there during a huge ice-storm. It took about an hour and a half just to drive me from the Airport to the hotel - and the guys there still took me out to dinner. I got snowed in the second day - so I missed Friday classes (which was a blessing in disguise due to all the stuff I had due that day). But - all in all I'm very satisfied with the result. I got to hang out with Nate & Mandy for two nights in a row. We all get along pretty well, and I have a feeling we'd be spending a lot of time together if I worked in KC. Mandy & Nate both really like their jobs a lot (which is especially good news coming from Nate since he WORKS for B&M), and they really like the city a lot. There's a shocking amount of diversity there - which is good. It's the "city of fountains" - second only to Rome for the number of fountains in the city. Wow. It's got great schools, nice neighborhoods, and super shopping (c'mon , Stace!!).

I haven't heard from anyone yet!! Including Delta!! I can't believe this. I went to the Cactus on Thursday night with Bryan and Sarah, which was awesome. Sarah wants nobody to offer me a job so I get stuck in Indy with her and B-spice. That wouldn't be all bad. I could get an M.S. at IUPUI in nightschool, hang out with Kel & Erin &amp;amp; Jay & Gretch & Chris & Brooke & obviously Sarah & Bryan.... so there's a lot going on there. I just don't feel like Indy is where I belong for the rest of my life. I dunno. I feel like I want some options.

So as far as things are going around here - I think Christmas is in the air. Stacey sent a care package to the guys and I (which was precious) - like we need more candy and cookies and cake, hah. But it was really sweet. The stockings are hung on the mantle, and I think we're all looking forward to a little vacation. This semester absolutely FLEW BY, but, as I said in an earlier posting I feel like it was a really good time. Craig & I had a really nice chat, and we're both in a really well adjusted, happy place. I'm very optimistic about the next couple of weeks, and also about the spring semester. I'll throw it out there right now - I'm going to try to convince my senior design group to make a steam engine. Think about it - that would be ASTONISHING! And in sort of the school-spirit with the whole boilermaker thing. Anyway, seasons greetings everyone.


Several teams of senior design this semester made a RC submarines. They're having a competition at the Aquatic center in 2 hours.... I really want to go. Seeya.

My poor blog. I've neglected you, again. I can make excuses all day long...but I 'll just tell you life has been busier than ever. Good news, though - everything is starting to come together.

First, I finally finished my off-campus interviews. I'm really lucky I got a chance to travel to the different locations and see what the companies have to offer. I haven't heard back from anyone yet (including Delta), but hopefully the offers/rejections will be rolling in within a week or two.

In school-related news - my semester long projects have been wrapping up with some pretty nice results. The project on the natural convection chimney produced excellent results - I'm not bragging but I think we had the best project of our lab section. John did some sweet animations with his CFD code - but you can't post those in blogger so you'll just have to take my word for it. Here's our results (including experimental data, CFD results, and THREE different analyses I performed... I'm not going into how much time I spent getting the equations right for that). Just the fact that five different data sets all have more or less the same magnitude result for velocity is AMAZING!


Also - not an hour ago we finished testing of the prototype toy for ME 444. I don't think I ever really explained the idea, but it's supposed to be a toy plane that hangs from the ceiling and has enough power to pull itself in circles around the room. WELL IT REALLY FLIES IN CIRCLES!! Wow. Jubilation. We actually had a group bet on weather the thing would work or not - so someones buying me a couple of drinks on Thursday when we open Jake's immediately after class:



So - It's not perfect, but it does what it's supposed to do and that's great! I have my final Women's Studies paper due Friday morning (which I haven't started yet) - so I need to work on that. After that, it's just finals week. My schedule is actually quite nice. One Wednesday, one Saturday. Plenty of time to study. I'll be really mad at myself if I don't excel on both.

The best way to summarize my end-of-semester attitude is this: I feel like I've put in a LOT of work, and I've really enjoyed the work and gotten a lot out of it. My grades won't be anything amazing, but I've decided that my personal satisfaction should be independent of how well my report card is. I feel like I've worked hard enough for straight A's, but I'm not going to be the least bit disappointed when the results are less than that.

On a more personal note - I'm more than excited about the holiday vacation coming up. This is probably due in part to the majority of my X-mas shopping already being DONE! We're actually staying in Houston this year (instead of driving to the G-parent's house), plus I'm flying home. So, my vacation will include a lot more enjoyment and a lot less sitting in the car. And like last year, I'll be flying back to Indy early so I can spend New Year's with Stacey! But 2 days isn't nearly long enough...and I have another week of vacation after that.... so I'm going to ride down to Huntsville with her and spend another couple of days before I have to be back at school.

So... I just have another week and 3 days here in the WL before it's over for this semester - and on with THE LAST SEMESTER. Wow. It's been five years and I feel like everything is right.

Peace.

It's getting pretty hairy around here. Seems like I live a very go-go-go-lifestyle now... it's like there's always this HUGE thing due TOMRROW...and as soon as I finish that, there will be some even greater obstacle to beat tomorrow... its getting tiring.

I didn't do so hot on the 315 exam tonight - which is especially frustrating considering I didn't do anything fun this weekend in lieu of studying my ass off. And what was waiting for me tonight, after said exam? Why the 315 lab report due tomorrow, of course. Blah. So I spent 2 hours on that and the damn calculations aren't turning out right - so at this point I think I've had enough for one day. Tomorrow will be better.

On the plus side, I did do one thing sucessfully today: I wrote a matlab script that makes a picture (presumably, a desktop-sized pic) of random square color blocks. Lame, huh? I found a cool website on truly random numbers (any of you who've looked into random number generators - like matlab's rand function - know it's totally useless if you want actual random numbers). Basically, this site takes "atmospheric noise" - white noise on the EM spectrum near a frequency where nobody is broadcasting - and turns it into real-time random numbers. Cool. So here goes:

clc
clear all
load rand1 %rand1 is a .mat file that presumably contains a very long vector
%(3000+ elements) "randn" of random numbers between 0 and 256
num=randn;
width=1600; %picture size width in pixels
height=1200; %picture size height in pixels
hblock=8; %desired number of vertical blocks
wblock=10; %desired number of horiz blocks
% CALCULATE
wdr=floor(width/wblock); %number of horiz pixels per block
hdr=floor(height/hblock); %number of vert pixels per block
pic=zeros(height,width,3);
tf=clock;
t=tf(6);
start=floor((t/60)*length(num));
if (start+500)>length(num)
start=start-(166*floor(t));
end
for k=1:hblock
for r=1:wblock
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),1)=num(start+3*r+k)/255; %assign red
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),2)=num(start+2*r+k)/255; %assign green
pic(((k-1)*hdr+1):(k*hdr),((r-1)*wdr+1):(r*wdr),3)=num(start+1*r+k)/255; %assign blue
end
end
% OUTPUT
imwrite(pic,'desktp1.jpeg','jpeg')

And here's a sample result (it should, ideally, always turn out different):



I guess it's not particularly pretty.or unique.or interesting. I just did it for fun. I think figuring out how to mess with photo editing in Matlab could be fun - maybe more in my spare time later.

The next few weeks are going to fly by - I have three off-campus interviews coming up: Kohler Faucets, Whirlpool, and Burns & Mac. Getting any of those three jobs would be awesome. Also, Thanksgiving is coming up - so not only do I get to see family but I'll meet up with Stace in Indy with her family for a day or two. But, I don't have to wait that long - she's also coming to visit this weekend (woohoo!).

Ok...must finish lab tomorrow, take data for the 315 project, and then study like a madman for the 375 exam thursday...ack! Wish me luck.

Job Search. Wow. Tons of Interviews on campus. CCO is amazing in terms of putting students in touch with companies interested in exactly what we have to offer. I've been doing a lot of online job-searching, too - but mostly it's really hard to find listings for "entry level engineer" anything - mostly they just email back telling me that I'm underqualified for whatever...which I understand, but it still sucks to think you're qualified for something and then be told you're not....

Right now I'm in that time where I've applied/interviewed with more than one really interesting company, but NOBODY's gotten back to me. Not even the company I co-opped with. Weird. I'm sure that will change soon, and there will be a very brief flash of activity like 2 weeks before I have to make up my mind....but I wish it were a steadier process....

Companies I've interviewed with that would be AMAZING to work for:
*Sikorsky - Design Engineering of mechanisms. Best continuing education program in the country. That fits what I'm looking for to a T.
*Whirlpool WTEP - Basically it's an advanced co-op program. 3 years, 4 six month rotations sandwiched around 1 year of full-time school to get a M.S. degree....with a stipend. Awesome. They seemed really open towards my dorkiness...which is...good..
*Kohler Faucets - I'm totally qualified to work there. They're prestigious, very intelligent, and they like what I have to offer.... nice.
*Kohler Generators - It's not my specialty, but I could really fit in there. Sounds like they give a lot of freedom to their engineers.
*It would also be awesome to land a job with one of the myriad of aerospace companies in Huntsville.... I'm a little behind on that - but that's going to pick up soon, here.

Right now I'm feeling pretty good. I'm finally on-top of everything I need to be on top of. Lola (my car) is feeling healthy after her oil/filter change. My room & house are both clean. I'm on top of my classes (which is awesome because of how many different little things there are going on.... e.g. I'm developing a hands-on kit for my class to build in under 2 weeks.... tomorrow I have a group meeting to build a chute for my natural convection project... et cetera....). UUUm I'm pumped about this weekend (football yay! B-Fast club yay! James' B-Day yay!). I should grill something. What else? I'm ready for Kel & Erin's wedding.... should be a fairly easy time for me, since I'm not IN the wedding I just get to show up and enjoy my date and the experience (plus it's my 6 month w/ Stace....go me and go commitment!!).

I'm trying to think of the best picture I can add to this posting to summarize what's going on right now... I think I've settled on this metaphoric picture of a sunrise from my recent trip to Huntsville:



Peace out.

Insanity. I am so busy it scares me. Yesterday was one of the longest days ever (9AM to 11PM solid schoolwork)...but wow was I productive. This afternoon I'm trying to work on some stuff due as soon as I get home from October break (when I'll be gone the whole time); 375 HW, 315 Lab, stuff like that. I'm psyched to spend a few days with Stace, and I'm stoked to see my Mom for an hour tomorrow. Kind of bizarre, I know - but hey I'll take what I can get.

But I wanna say a thing or two about my Heat/Mass Transfer Lab Project... because I'm really getting into it. The idea is based around natural convection - which is where because a heater changes the temperature (and thus, density) of a gas locally - that gas rises and creates a bulk motion. We're going to set up a heater (cylindrical in shape) in an insulated vertical chute, and measure the resulting temperature and velocity of the steady state air that's going to blow out of the top. It's called the "chimney Effect". The thing will look like this:



It's a heating/flow phenomenon, so it can be simulated by a numerical solution to the Navier Stokes equations coupled with some known heating/density stuff.

Temperature rises locally around the heater and creates the hot jet that rises in the center.



Because the air's heated - it starts gaining velocity; looks like it's going to get going to fastest in the middle of the buoyant jet:



So that's cool. I didn't write the CFD code, or run the simulations (code written by my 12-year PhD candidate TA, simulations run by my group member). But damn, I must say that is player. I've been responsible for finding as much academic information about the project as possible - and sure enough some guys from the Netherlands did this verbatim in 1994 ("Natural Convection Around a Horizontal Circular Cylinder in Infinate Space and Within Confining Plates" - Numerical Heat Transer Part A Volume 25 pp 441-456) - complete with their own accompanied experimental/numerical results. Awesome. So for the next month or so I'm going to be consumed with building this thing and taking the data.

I think it's fair to say I'm getting into my classes quite a bit. Hopefully I'll post a entry later about my ME444 project - where we're building a toy plane based on a really interesting historical aircraft.... and it's going to look amazing.

Allright - gotta get back to work and finish as much as I can so I can goof off for break and not feel guilty! Huntsville, here I come! 5 day weekend!!!

Sunday Sunday Sunday. This represents the first weekend of the entire semester I haven't had plans. No football game, no traveling, no guests. Granted, I do miss Stacey a lot but I woke up this morning feeling so refreshed..... I accomplished a lot yesterday afternoon (chore-wise) and I plan on accomplishing more today (homework/schoolwork wise).

I even cleaned out my grill. Scrubbed the plates, wiped down the surfaces, emptied out the "juice tray". Hooray! New propane tank, feels like a new grill.



Ain't she a beaute'? Last week I made this wicked pork tenderloin in a teriyaki marinade. But mostly, I focus on sausage and hot-dogs. I bought drumsticks at Payless yesterday, so I want to make BBQ early this week....maybe part of a Craig Birthday celebration!??! maybe. I'm baking a cake here as soon as I finish this entry.....

I'm sad Stacey's moved away (well, further away). She'll be stationed in Huntsville, AL for the next 9 months. We'll see each other a lot here in the next month (I'm flying there for October break, and she's flying here for the Wedding at the end of October). But after that I don't know. I want to come back up early after X-mas vacation so I can spend New-Year's-Eve with her - but it's a long time between Halloween and the New Year. She's a goofball, and I love it. I can honestly say I smirk everytime I think about her.



Things are going swimmingly right now. Spencer wants me to make a "lifesize portrait complete with cowboy hat and cigarette" of him for Christmas. Well, thanks for the early warning.... I think I'll do it, but not in watercolor. It would turn out really shitty. I think I'm going to learn how to do a monochrome stencil in photoshop, and spray paint it on a white sheet or something. That way, I can have more than one shot at getting a good one....plus it'll go with the theme (what, was he expecting oil paints? puh-leaze.).

Life at the house is great. I'm not playing as many video games as I'd like (no free time) - but the guys are amicable and I enjoy living here. I do most of the cleaning (which doesn't bother me so much....because it's not that much cleaning...once a week) and cooking (which also doesn't bother me because "cooking" is read "grilling").

Big month coming up ...I'm excited.

Best. Weekend. Ever.

This needs to be a really quick entry because I gotta be teaching a class in 10 minutes.

I left town Friday afternoon around 2:30 which put me in Cinci to see Stacey at 5:30. We grilled out in the hotel courtyard (3+ hour marninated chicken with corn on the cob with SHINER BOCK the best texas beer....). Then it was off to her Mom's house for a little dessert and video on the couch-time.....Aladdin. Amazing. It's been years and years since I've seen that movie and I remembered SO many little gags in it. It was very fun. Those of you who know I'm a muppet fan will recognize that Aladdin is definitely the most zaney Disney movie of all time.

Saturday was jam-packed. We went to the Taft Museum to see some JMW Turner paintings (which are REALLY small and REALLY amazingly detailed), then to Oktoberfest downtown to gorge ourselves on festivities (limberger cheese sandwich, saurkrat and sausage, strudel, and two very large very dark beers), then to the concert at Bogart's.

Oktoberfest was really enjoyable. It's hard to not have a good time when you drink that much beer and eat that much good food. Stacey treated me to a Warsteiner and a Hudy Delight. Wow. Really glad she was driving because those were very very large cups.

Hooray Beer!

The concert was pretty fun. The Bronx were "on" when they played - despite the fact that the roadie brought 5 or 6 cans of Budweiser on stage before they came on, and they finished ALL of them, they played really well. Converge (the middle band) sucked ass. And Mastodon was good as well.... perhaps more dramatic than I was hoping for but in general it was cool to see them play such complicated songs live. We brought ear-plugs this time and that was a really good idea. We were also in the front-front row the whole time and had a great view. I'll try to post some pics on facebook later.

Matt from the Bronx....great stage moves

Sunday was lazy and slow. We went to the batting cages where Stacey hit the crap out of about 80% of the balls and I whiffed on about 60% of the balls....not very coordinated, people.

Last week I had an interview with a Dynamic Systems Engineer from Sikorsky Helicopters. And it went really really well. That would be a cool ass job. Mostly mechanism design of really small high-speed (30000 rpm) components for the military. Awesome.

Ok I'm off to teach my class. Today we're doing 2-stroke Internal Combustion Engines for RC aircraft..... cool. I'm not an expert on engine design but it will still be fun.

Everything is kind of insane right now. Lots Lots Lots on my mind. I got really spoiled on the idea of goofing off on vacation - cuz getting back into the groove of homework is hard. I'm really thankful I have a bunch of friend's material from classes they've had and I'm taking right now. I'm also thankful that the hardest class I'm taking this semester with my blood-brother, Alex.

Alex bought a new TV. So we're back to "civilized" TV watching - two at once, baby. The only way to fly. The grill continues to work out nicely. I grilled chicked w/ zuchinni in a teriyaki marinade last night - it was delectible. My room is still nice and big - but it seems like I'm just using the extra floorspace to spread my crap evenly around the room (isn't there some kind of analogous biological theory about how a goldfish will grow to the size of the fishbowl?). I still need to make that trip to University Bookstore to get binders & dividers to start my meticulous organization of class materials (which, by extension should get the crap off my floor). The kitchen is also already a pigsty. I'm going to clean the living hell out of my room, the bathroom (which doesn't need it - I just want it to smell lemony-fresh), and the kitchen before this weekend (see below).

But man am I happy it's past Wednesday - the rest of the week should be a breeze. I've already finished my assignments for Thursday, and I only have a couple of small things for Friday. Then this weekend Stace visits & (hopefully) we'll together watch the Boilermakers trample their opponents on the field of battle. So things are on the up and up for the moment. Tonight should certainly afford my opportunities to drink beer and play video games. Isn't that what we all want, anyway?

Also, in a shameless plug to get my Google rating up, here's a link to my tools webpage that's supposed to showcase what a bright young man I am - don't go there, though - it's still under construction.

Also also, Adultswim is playing a show that I'm actually excited about (which hasn't happened since I wanted to shoot myself in the face after watching an entire episode of "Tom Goes to the Mayor" about a year ago) - it's called Metalocalypse; and it's about, you guessed it, an absurd metal band. It's animated. It's overstereotyped. It's Metal. There's an interesting interview with the creators here. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the original guys who worked on Aqua Teen worked on this show - not only does it have a similar style of random humor, but on several of the "commentaries" for episodes of ATHF, there's a guy just shredding on a guitar for like 10 minutes... so yeah.

Dethklok is muy caliente.

End Transmission.

Back to School. The transition back to classes has been rather smooth so far. I'm fairly optimistic about all my classes except for Heat/Mass Transfer, where the teacher is apparently a huge douche. That plan about buying a grill and using it has turned out very very well. I had brats for lunch. It was mind-blowing good - and I didn't even warm the buns.

I'm on a gap between classes now.....two hour break before "Mechanical Engineering Ambassadors" - which I think should be easy....and hopefully will look good on a resume.

My computer has really been pissing me off today. I spent about 2 hours trying (as in, I never actually suceeded) to do something that should take about 20 mintues. I just know there are little virus goblins in there messin' things up.... and it bugs me. my new DVD burner came in over the weekend and I hooked it up this morning - hopefully tonight I can start backing up my files (27 Gigs of Naruto....dang). Anyway, I don't know what the solution is (since all I can see is symptoms of what could be caused by any one of a number of serious problems)....but I'm ticked enough to start trying aggressively to fix it.

On the bright side - we played a lot of MarioKart yesterday. I lost quite a bit, but it's still relaxing. Craig is getting a lot more confident in speaking with vulgarity - mostly with reference to video games (e.g.: *very loud* "Fuck. You. Alex." ). I like it.

I remember Kevin Badger actually HAD this phone....man that was weird.

Peace ppl - send me good vibes to start ramping up my productivity. This semester's going to be a lot lot lot of work!

Wow. Being on vacation is amazing. I'm so spoiled right now I can hardly stand it. I got home from 2 days in Cinci w/ Stace yesterday afternoon - so relaxing. I finally got to meet more of her co-workers, which was nice because she spends all her time with these people now and I need to keep up with everything that happens. We also spent a nice evening with Oma - Stace's grandma. She is, by far, the coolest Grandma I've ever met. I'm back home in the WL now, and I just have one week of vacation left before the fall semester starts. I know it's cliche - but all the work/school I've done really makes me appreciate time when I don't really have to do ANYTHING.



I'm writing this from the new house - which means I sucessfully set up the internet router in the basement *go me*. I'm leaving in 2 hours to pick up James & go to the Indiana State Fair w/ Kellen, Erin, & Jay. So that'll take up the rest of my day. Riding in a ferris wheel, eating deep-fried-snickers bars...oh man I can't wait. The last time I was at the Indiana State fairgrounds was for the gun show, which some people thought was laughable - but I enjoyed anyway. Hell, I saw Wagner there (as in Wagner's Gun & Barber Shop - best haircuts I've got in Indiana - for the record). Too bad I'm not on the market for a quality firearm right now. I dunno what else there is to do & see there - but that's the idea - it'll be a new experience.

There are still a ton of interesting & productive things on my "to do" list before school starts. So far I've adopted the unfortunately-wasteful trend of just watching TV with my spare time - but that can't continue. I know how valuable this time is so it shoudn't be squandered on the 500 channels of joy I'll be able to watch all year - I need to do some of this stuff I'm not going to have time to do for another couple of months. Vacation time is precious!!!!

1) Buy a suit. Honestly, I'm kind of intimidated. This is one really important high-dollar purchase every young man has to make sooner or later (but I have a wedding to go to in 2 weeks, so this needs to happen SOON) - and I want to look really good. I think I know what I want, but there's so many options. I'm kinda scared. My eyes really suggest I should go with a standard blue suit (because damn, when CAN'T you wear a blue suit?) - but I think I'm so goofy that a more serious theme like black or charcoal grey might be a good choice.... I dunno. whatever I end up with I'll post pictures of the wedding.

2) Repair glasses. Because I'm a clumsy fool when I drink, I sat on my $300 ralph-lauren frames one evening when Stace was over. Thank god they're metal and can be bent back into shape. Urgh. My Dad would kill me.

3) Update Resume. Because Industrial Roundtable is an opportunity one can't pass up in my position. Delta may offer me a job, but maybe they won't. I need to explore my options (and with the aforementioned suit, I'll look damn good doing it).

4) Spraypaint a Mural. Because our basement is really barren and I haven't done anything remotely artistic in years. I have spare sheets. I have tons of cheap spraypaint sitting around. If it turns out crappy - oh well, it's just going in the basement...who cares? I'm thinking something school-spirit plus graffiti-culture themed..we'll see. I just feel a need to do something wild like this.

5) Build a Bar/Decorate Basement - see earlier posting on this. I want this room to turn out cool, but with Craig & Alex not showing up till late we might not get much done. I'll try to convince them, though.

6) Buy/Install DVD burner for my computer. I haven't backed up my files in forever and this PC is reaching the end of its expected lifespan. Losing all my music and pictures right now would be a catastrophe. Plus, it's acting all sluggish... I need to backup my critical files and reformat.... a cleansing absolution of my computing sins should restore my formerly-awesome performance. This thing was purchased in 2002 with a pentium 4 and 1 Gig of RAM.... it's pretty fast even by today's standards- so you can understand my frustration when Winamp starts making the music skip when I just open mozilla....LAME! There must be bots hiding somewhere that Symantec doesn't know about (even though I repeatedly scan).

7) Buy a Grill. Craig and I agreed on this one earlier in the summer. Getting a new house with a deck means we NEED a GRILL! Grilling food is super-easy & super-tasty. It represents a rite-of-passage all young men must go though sooner or later - a maturing from boiled-water-hot-dogs to the fire-broiled tastiness of grilled bratwurst. From george-forman frozen burgers to half-inch thick new-york strip. By God, as 22 year-olds this is a natural step we deserve. I can promise you this - we won't be giving Wal-Mart our money on this one.

That's a pretty ambitious list for just 7 more days of freedom. Not to mention that Alex & Craig should be coming back by Tuesday or Wednesay - and they will naturally distract me with video games and the like. I do miss them both a lot, and I can't wait for them to get here - but I know my productivity's going to hell once that PlayStation gets plugged in. Oh well, at least I have high hopes. To tell the truth, I've already accomplished a ton - I just know there's a huge potential to do a lot more. Wish me luck!

New House. New Year. Vacation.

I finished moving out of my crap-hole appartment on S. Salisbury today. Turned in the keys with a self-addressed stamped envelope for the (much reduced due to massive urine stains) deposit I should be getting back. I'm about 1/4 done with arranging my stuff at the new place...there's just so so so much room to move stuff around. My bedroom is like a small auditorium, and it has a kickass view.

The gas doesn't get turned on until tomorrow afternoon - so it looks like it's going to be a cold shower for me in the morning (and I mean COLD - Stacey can tell you just how cold it is...). Internet/Cable TV gets set up Wednesday, so that should give me a couple of days to get things done before I start rotting my brain.

Sidenote - the new house has a huge bar-room in the basement; except that it still needs to be turned into a bar-room. I think when the guys get back, our group activity will be :
A) building the bar (we're manly men! we use powertools and varnish!)
B) buying/hanging a dartboard........foosball and billiards are also acceptible
C) stealing as many neon/non neon alcohol signs as we can.

See there, alcoholism can be wholesome, too.....

So that's exciting. I'll be gone wednesday afternoon to Friday morning to visit Stace... busy busy!

My math final's in an hour. I'm prettymuch studied out. I had a Mad Mushroom Chicken grinder for lunch (which Alex knows I affectionately call "the sandwich of life"), and I feel more or less prepared. I've (re)done the homework assignments for the entire summer in the last 3 days. I've memorized three pages of formulas/bizzare mathematical relations. I can't really do much more at this point to channel my chakra into doing well on this exam - in three hours I'll be home playing FFVII again only to start cramming tomorrow for Friday's exam in 352. Maybe Craig will come over for a while. That would be nice.

Oh yeah - the new Bronx album DOES rock. And Mastodon made another single from the new album available for streaming on their myspace page.... so I'm definitely pumped about the concert - I've been getting in my daily dose of rock-out-time.

Pumped about this weekend. New house. New room. Girlfriend time. And No Schoolwork :) Peace
everyone!

Another quick post on another quick study break.

Madness. I've put off this 352 project for way too long - I'm essentially doing the entire thing in 24 hours. But it was worth it: this past weekend was a BLAST!!! Saturday was the first time I'd been out with my Purdue peoples in a long while - and the first time hangin' out with Kellen & Erin in an even longer while. Good food/beer at Laf Brew Co, SoCo shot at Nate's crew's appt, then home for shots w/ Kellen Erin & James, then off to a party, then back to my place for MORE shots, finally off to Jake's for the entire gang to chill. Definitely one of my last chances to hang out with Mandy now that she's moving to Kansas City so soon. Sunday: OZZFEST - I don't have enough time to talk about how sweet it was, but rest assured I got my rock on in a pleasant variety of intensity all day long. Also, Jonathan & his friend bascially entertained each other all day, so I had Stace to myself (good cuz I won't be able to hang out with her again until after finals...blah). The afternoon sets were mostly hardcore (only went in the pit to see Atreyu - awesome!), and the evening sets were the headliners (A7X sucks ass, but Lacuna Coil & S.O.A.D. were both in really top form). Didn't get home until 1, so I was zonked for Monday. Long story short - I didn't do any schoolwork the whole weekend.



Good news: I've basically got the programming in the bag - it's not done but I've figured out the solution method (hooray). Bad news: the programming is only the first 3rd of the project - there's a surprising amount of work by hand... nuts (which sucks because, unlike work by computer, if you make a mistake you have to start the WHOLE thing over...). The plan right now is to work at home until midnight-ish, and then trek over to the Math Building computer lab for my late-night concentration. I have a hunch I can get most of it done but there's no way it's going to be an impressive effort - but I'm not going to feel guilty at all when I have to turn this thing in at noon.... I'll probably just be exhausted and go home to bed (but I can't sleep too long because I have HW due in BOTH math and 352 thursday.... crackwhore teachers). I scored 15 points better than the average on the 2nd exam - so I think I'm in good shape.



So yeah - just this next 18 hours of hell, and then I only have to worry about my 2 finals (which are thankfully two days apart! AND!! two days after the weekend ends...so I'll be a moron if I don't study hard). I'm starting to get really anxious for this two weeks of vacation between finals and the fall semester starting - I have some high-quality goof-off time coming my way.

Wish me luck!

Just a quick post on my study break.

In general, everything is going really well. The next two weeks are going to be absolute hell, though. Tonight marks my first (and hopefully only) all-nighter of the semester. Last semester I had to pull one-a-week, so I'm kind of an old pro at this point; I still hate doing it, though. It's my own fault for not starting studying for this math exam sooner - but if I don't churn out some hardcore cramming I'm going to fail for sure. And considering that's exactly what I did last time, I can't afford a repeat F. This math class counts as a tech-elective, so I need the credits to graduate (if I fail, it means adding an extra 3 hrs of HARD material to my fall or spring semester - BAD idea). Looks like my Friday afternoon is going to be spent in bed.... but it'll be worth it if I just don't fail.....

hooray for coffee binges. wish me luck tomorrow.

I'm so happy right now I want to cry.

Dear, sweet everloving Jesus - I sincerely apologize for all the whining I've been doing lately - for you have given me a gift beyond my wildest dreams.

Just as soon as I'm here talking up new albums from two of my most favorite and diverse bands...they announce a huge North American Tour. Visiting a city I can drive to. Not only that, but a city where I can stay the night for free. Not only that, but it's on a Saturday night - so come hell or high water in schoolwork I AM GOING. Not to mention I received notice early enough that I can purchase tickets online. Hell. I already purchased tickets. I got that shit before AP.net even made the announcement.


Saturday, Sept 16th. Bogart's. Cincinnati. The Bronx opening for Mastodon.

I know this doesn't mean much to you readers - but trust me this is a very very VERY BIG F**KING DEAL!

I have a lot going on right now school-wise, but now I have no reason whatsoever to complain about ANYTHING..... man this is awesome. Back to work.....

Oh yeah! Ozzfest this weekend! Suite. I promise I'll write a blog entry reivew.... I'm sure there will be some noteworthy happenings....

Current Mood: Optimistic and complacent

**random Radiohead reference - thank you Mandy **

Reason: Although I can't buy them yet, I can now stream both the new Bronx album (one thumb up) and the new Muse album (two thumbs up!!), and one track from the new Mastodon album. Ha HA! God bless the internet - and record labels smart enough to know that this is a good way to help consumers know if they should actually buy the CD or not. Also, my math homework only took 2 hours 15 minutes and 5 pages of writing....which is REALLY short... really.

Also, I'll be in Cinci this weekend: riding rollercoasters and enjoying romance. And I'm done with all my required HW for the week. Beat that.

Trying to decide right now if I should work on the 352 project due soon, or just drink beer and play FFVII... I dunno. I did already spend like 2 hours on the project today... and I do enjoy beer... hrm.



Next week will suck - two exams plus all the regular bullsh*t. And I'm sure as hell not doing any HW this weekend, so it'll pile up. Maybe I should be smart and do Monday's 352 assignment today. I don't know. Perhaps tomorrow night.

Just to add random info-tainment value to this posting, check out this article on how demographic-specific video slot-machines have become. I'm instantly reminded of "fist fulla dollars" - Mandy's intense experience with a Clint Eastwood themed video slot machine.... but geez, doesn't anybody have time to learn craps or roulette anymore? Eh, personally gambling doesn't really do anything for me - it should be a form of entertainment, but it just always feels like a form of losing money for no good reason. If I wanted to be a real man, I'd learn how to play roulette like James Bond (perhaps why Stacey likes playing it so much?). Although pushing that "Ni" button does sound like a kick - it would certainly do the trick to convince me to spend more money on each roll....

Peace.

"this week's episode makes me want to die in a fire. Watch and you'll agree" - Dattebayo fansub

I do. Maybe it's time for me to pick a new obscure thing to be a fan of since my current (for 2 years) thing sucks now. Especially since it's no longer obscure - Cartoon Network regularly shows these awful dubs, and there's an apparently REALLY SHITTY video game for it now (at least according to the good people at G4, who's opinion I trust with infinite faith).


It's also more than plausible that I'm in a bad mood because I just found out I scored 55/100 on my first math exam....a full 15 points below the class average. And also, I'm going to be stuck in WL this weekend working on the 352 project instead of visiting Cinci. Urgh.

I'm out. maybe a bike ride w/ Craig will soothe my nerves.

Just to help assure my faithful readers that it's not just one band I care about, I thought I'd take this time to remind myself what an exciting time for new music this is! Yessirree, Bob there's more than one new album coming out soon that I can't wait to get my hands on.

the Mars Volta! Probably much more talented than the Bronx. The term "musical genius" really hits home once you start to appreciate how much thought and effort goes into this band's albums. It's basically frightening how good they are. I'd try to explain it in detail, but I'd probably just melt your brain. Amputechture will be released Aug 22nd. Bitchin'.

Mastodon Said it before, and I'll say it again. Heavy metal just makes sense when you hear it from these guys. There's something so primal, brutal, and cleansing about rocking out to this Atlanta foursome. "Blood Mountain" (their 4th album) has been finished - they have artwork and the single all picked out...but I can't find a release date.... I want it. **side note** they'll be playing Seattle in less than 2 weeks....again, Brian I'm so effin' jealous. **

the Format Wowsa. Another superbly talented group with an amazing & highly anticipated album. Extremely mellow, extremely catchy. Joey predicts they make it big with this album. "Dog Problems" in stores July 11th. AP.net has been pimping this one hardcore..... we all know that means stardom is just around the bend... ** they play Seattle Aug 25th....I don't hate Brian for this one because he'll be stuck in WL here with me :) **

Muse I was skeptical initially, but I withdraw any earlier disrespectful statements about this band. Yeah, they're popular, Yeah you can go eat a d**k while I go out and buy this CD and enjoy the hell out of it. July 11th. Black Holes and Revelations. 'Nough said. ** These last two don't count as much since they're so far away, but they're still on my Radar Screen and worth mentioning as long as I'm on the topic of anticipated new albums..... ****

Vaux - Beyond Virtue, Beyond Vice. These guys basically got screwed by their record label at the exact same time they finished their last album....so they've been selling home-burnt copies in CD jackets hand-spraypainted for the last few months. BUT! Now they've found a record label willing to agree to their terms, so they're officially releasing the album. I've had my "unofficial" official copy for a few months now - but come Aug 1st joe shmo will be able to get his!

The Black Keys - Magic Potion. Two young white guys who sound like two old Black Guys. southern. bluesy. soulful. A simple formula that works. I'm curious what I'll be hearing come sept 12th of this year. So THERE! ... I'm still counting down to the 20th ... at which point I'll run down to Von's only to be dissappointed that they don't have what I want - but THEN I'll find a way to get my hands on the new Bronx album. But even if it sucks and I'm totally dissappointed (which I WONT be) - there's plenty more to look forward to. That makes me happy.

Final Note on this entry: Both the new Moneen album (the Red Tree) and the new Saves the Day album (Sound the Alarm) have been two of the best purchases I've ever made. They both display some incredible songwriting and staying power.

final final note: Kenny's saying "hey - HEY YOU! Yeah YOU! If you don't start singing along I'm coming back there and I'm going to KILL YOU". Hah. Canadians are hilarious.