Clock Teacher

The greatest T-shirt ever made!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Three-Wolf-T-Shirt/dp/B000NZW3KC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1242926093&sr=8-1

Behold it's splendor. To fully appreciate how awesome this T-shirt is, you MUST read the reviews. 

Talk about your fusion of cultures

Wow, this was not something I was expecting to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwTFJ-Vwbgs

and the quick wiki reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jero

Of course with globalization this is something we will see more and more of, and frankly I think that's great.

Blessed randomness

It's late, I should get to bed.  I was going to post more today but I got busy with studying.  Hope to post more tomorrow.  In the mean time, here are the themes from Gummy Bears and Duck Tails in Japanese.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RGx7Ecqy8g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VXpMqEp3kc&feature=related

Oh, and Battlestar Galactica Season 4 just started.  Dang that is the best show on TV.  If you haven't seen it, rent the mini-series.  You have to start at the beginning and that's all you need to get hooked.  Even if you don't like Sci-Fi, this show is amazing.

Best comment on the Blu-ray/HD-DVD battle evarrr!

As many of you know, I am a bit of a techno-geek.  I loves me the gadgets.  Well, since I already owned an X-box 360 and I knew I wasn't going to get a PS3 until I got back from Korea, I picked up the HD-DVD add-on for Christmas.  This seemed like a good idea at the time as Paramount just went HD-DVD exclusive, plus HD-DVD is region free, so if Korean movies came out on it I could watch them with no problems.  But then in January, Warner Brothers went Blu-Ray, and it all came crashing down.  HD-DVD is dead.  Now Sony just has to fight it's true competitors, regular DVD's and digital distribution.  Personally I think digital distribution will eventually win and Blu-Ray will be like laser discs. 

Anyways, as I was reading a gaming blog about Microsoft discontinuing manufacturing HD-DVD add-ons, I read this gem of a comment, that was so profound I just had to share it with you.

Slatz_Grobnik writes " Seriously, this has to have been the lamest format war of all time.  Possibly excepting the fish-bones 'n string vs. writing debacle of 489 B.C.E."

You said it Slatz_Grobnik, you said it all.

This is really cool.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/year1999.asp

Seriously, it will be amazing in a hundred years to see just how close to star trek we get(we already have some things already).  Granted most future predictions don't get it right, but it is pretty interesting when they do.

Oh, and as a fun companion piece.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/storage.asp

Um, if anybody wants to make this for my birthday, I won't mind.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/1 0/how-to-make-a-w.html

Kind of cool to see this on CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/07/09/weightloss.success/index.html

I can totally relate to her. One of the factors that made me wake up was that I realized if I got any bigger, I would have to go to specialty stores to get my clothes, Target was getting too small. And that was when I was wearing size 46 with extend-able waistlines.  I have seen TV shows and talk shows trying to sell the message to obese people that you just have to be who you are and be happy with yourself.  That is true, however you also have to understand that there are consequences to being that size, social, physical, psychological etc.  I think that message is more directed to those that are "a little" big and "big boned" vs those that are grossly obese. It causes issues, potentially life threatening (just like smoking, drinking, extreme sports, solitaire to name a few).  So it's good to see CNN showing someone positive and I'm glad that it is currently ranked the #3 most read article on the site.  Way to go.

Is Wikipedia the start of the Encyclopedia Galactica?

For those not familiar with Azimov's Foundation series...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_%28novel%29

Wikipedia is amazing.  It still has a long way to go, but it is amazing.  What is so great about it is that because it is user created, it covers just about everything. According to the main page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page there are 1,960,819 articles in English.  Wow.  While I still don't use wikipedia as a source for a paper I write, it is a great jumping off point for resources as well due to it's excellent inclusion of related links.  I also applaud its requirements to site sources.  I think the many newspaper articles recently about companies and political institutions trying to manipulate it's pages speaks to it's importance.  As usual, it's greatest strength is it's greatest weakness, that anyone can edit it.  However this allows for information that no encyclopedia company would bother to put in their volumes.  Statistical data on a country? Check.  Album lists of a Japanese rock band? Check.  The average air speed of an unladen swallow? Check.(African and European). It's all there.  I love that I can type in the name of pretty much any video game and find out who made it, how well it did, and what was the game like.   And then there is the edit wars.  Some of the threads they have to lock and require you to have proved yourself a capable contributor to edit, a good idea.  Here is a fun list of the lamest edit wars on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:LAME  Korea's on the list for it's battle with Japan over Dokto(Takashima, Liancourt rocks)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokdo and the Sea of Japan(East Sea)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Japan_naming_dispute.

But all of that does not detract from the fact that Wikipedia just rocks.  (or does it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_sucks hahahahahaha)

I'm 2/3 the man I used to be.

Yep, that's me.  October of 2005 and 100 pounds ago.  In January of 2006 I weighed in at 316 pounds, yesterday I was 214.

Here is a pic of me from a month ago at about 220. I'm at the COEX Aquarium under a giant snow making machine, very arctic.

And I still have a ways to go.  Another great side affect is that I am also healthier.  I cried a little when the nurse told me that I head healthy blood pressure(that was when I was still at Kaiser) and my cholesterol levels are way down(though I haven't had them checked since I got here, no reason to think the trend did not continue)  I will never forget when I saw my regular doctor in the summer of 2006. After not seeing me since January when I had my checkup up, he walked in and asked if I had surgery.  Wow, that felt great. Of course I could have gotten here sooner, but I wanted to enjoy the ride more.  One of the keys for me is that once I reach my target weight, I won't really have to change much, I will just be able to eat a little bit more.  Now of course comes the really hard part, the toning.  Gotta get rid of the belly.  I have to thank my friends and family that have been such a great support group and I have to give the biggest thanks to Felix.  We started this together and doing it with you made it SOOOOO much easier.  While I can give nutrition tips and document what I did, the most important step was the moment that the switch just clicked in my head and I decided that it was time to get healthy again.  That happened around Christmas of 2005.  I'm so glad it did.

When I stabilize, I am going to have to post a picture time-line, that would be interesting. It is also great to be able to buy clothes here.  I am actually going to have to take most of my winter clothes home with me this Christmas, because they are too big. Woohoo! 

(EDIT) Nothing like children to keep you humble. I showed these pics to my co-worker, who's pre-teen daughter said "they look the same".  Oh well.

Wow, how do you practice this one

http://youtube.com/watch?v=K6Go38znXHM&mode=related&search=

If only I could have recovered like this, I would have saved myself 250$ and Brian Kowalski's bike back in high school.  Oh well.

And here's another one that just takes a little practice.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pxy9QSz8odw

too cool.