flungster's musings

In case you were curious about the Sith (and wanted to be one yourself..), check out the Sith Explained.

WOW! An 11 year girl in upstate NY named Katie Brownell, pitched a perfect game over the weekend. Mind you - this was a baseball game too, not some softball game. She is the ONLY girl in her upstate Little League and she was blowing fastballs by boys her age. What made this all the more impressive was the fact that she retired every single batter by the means of a strikeout. That’s right. She struck all 18 batters out in 6 innings. WOW.

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SOOO FUNNY!!

http://geekfantasies.com/

Well I just finished watching the Apprentice tonight and given how the producers filmed the show - it’s clear that Kendra should be the winner of the Apprentice contest this season. The problem is.. I don’t think either contestant is anywhere near the quality of the first two winners of the Apprentice show. This points to an even bigger problem with The Donalds’ show - it’s all getting a bit old! Whereas shows like American Idol keep drawing people back over and over again - the Apprentice is just getting old and boring. Street Smarts vs. Book Smarts.. omg - how dumb was this to begin with? Anyhow, I hope Kendra wins and I hope the Apprentice takes a season or two off.

Ahh something to be proud of when it comes to Cornell. Scientists at my Alma Mater have created small robots that can build copies of themselves. The robot is made out of several small 4 inch cubes that have identical configurations. Each cube has a computer program for replication and electromagnets to attach and detach to one another. A stack of four cubes was able to replicate itself in a matter of 2.5 minutes. As the new robot is constructed, it also helps to construct itself.. pretty nifty.

Of course, at first glance, one may say - umm so what? However, this research work can provide the motivation and inspiration for further work downstream where robots heal themselves or are capable of repairing other units. Of course there are scary notions - what if a robot could make a better version of itself? What if these things became self aware? Scary huh? Yet, it’s cool!

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Woo hoo - there’s a new DMB album out called Stand Up. Actually the album has been out for about a week now but I totally forgot about it. I’ve listened to a portion of the album so far and it isn’t too bad. I know some of the reviews on Amazon.com have been less than positive - mostly because this album is actually quite different from their previous works. I think it’s refreshing to see DMB perform new materials and I’m sure I’ll eventually get hooked on these new songs like I have with the older albums.

Here’s a funny site for the day - the Google Content Blocker. With so many sites offering Google text ads these days - why bother reading the actual content on the website? The content’s just fluff when you consider the actual fun is in the ads. Hence.. the Google Content Blocker - run this tool and remove the fluff and read the ads. heh.. funny stuff..

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I saw a really great match last night at the Pauley Pavilion at UCLA where the mens volleyball teams from UCLA and Pepperdine faced off for the NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship. Pepperdine won game 1 and then UCLA came storming back to win games 2 and 3. Pepperdine recovered to tie the match in game 4 and then dominated game 5 - 15 - 10. I was simply awed by the height of the Pepperdine players.. my goodness they were tall. Sean Rooney and Jon Parfitt were having monster nights on the UCLA defense. However, you have to hand it to UCLA - they put up a great effort and actually had a chance in winning this. The UCLA team had a far better jump serving group than the Pepperdine team which equalized the scoring. But when it came to blocking and hitting, Pepperdine had the definite edge.

One of the best things about living here in the So.Cal. region is the chance to check out many of the regional sports which makes this area so unique. These are some of the things that I wish a school like Cornell had. *sigh*.. (also makes me wonder if I should have pursued baseball a bit more in college).

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I’ll be honest - I’ve been looking forward to the weekend more often these days with all the work that I have to do these days AT work. Being promoted can be a great thing career wise.. but it can also bring a ton of responsibilities. My challenge now is to take up this responsibility and to run with it..not walk with it.

One of the things that I learned during my two year stint at Intel was a concept called “Management by Objectives”. I’m going to be referring back to this concept now that I have a few people under me that are my direct reports. One of these days, I’ll sit down and talk about this concept in detail but for those of you who are curious what it is..do a google search on it. I’m sure there’s plenty of info on it out there.

Anyhow.. it’s the weekend - the dstsgurls have a vball tournament tomorrow which I will drop by at. I’ll also need to do work - either at the tourney or at work or at home.. doesn’t really matter. I’m also considering sending out an email to friends and family about Krunker.com. Hey - if you have time, check it out please. It’s still pretty new of course but I really hope all of you end up enjoying the site as much as I do.

It’s nearly 4am now and I really need to get some sleep. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

It’s friday night so you know what that means - yet another episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Actually after tonight’s airing of “Demons”, there will only be two more episodes of Star Trek Enterprise left.

Demons takes us back to Earth where we find the human race at crossroads. On one hand, you have Starfleet about to forge an alliance with various planets to form what we would later know as the Federation. On the other hand, you have a growing number of humans called “Terra Prime” that want all aliens to leave the planet and to keep earth just to humans… essentially these individuals are portrayed at isolationists or xenophobes.

It’s an interesting concept but not exactly ground breaking - essentially a story that in many ways models what the US went through before becoming a super power. There were significant portions of the population that wanted America to just stay out of the business of others and there were those who felt that America had a greater responsibility. Of course.. we’ll never really know who was right but today we find the US at the center of much of the world’s attention for better or for worse.

Demons takes this to a grander scale - will Earth become the stage for further attention down the line as it forms this alliance? Will we attract more and more aliens and thus make humans second class citizens as the episode postulates? In many ways, this episode could have been so much more. They could have looked at how aliens were being treated by other humans, or they could have shown how Earth was actually really divided. However, all they ended up showing was a bunch of wealthy humans taking a mining station from the moon and flying it over to Mars. Then after a magical arm comes out and takes over an array, the Terra Prime forces become a threat because they can supposedly destroy anything. Umm ok. So you’re telling me a fleet of starships can be destroyed by this slow moving array ? Umm ok.

And what’s up with this Trip and T’Pol baby? How the? what the heck?? Does anyone feel like this was an episode of the X-Files all over again? OMG - it’s actually Mulder’s kid isn’t it? Sheesh.

Just when I thought that Enterprise was going out with a bang with the In a Mirror Darkly episodes, they decide to do this xenophobic episodes which do nothing but show how lame the writing can be sometimes. I firmly wish that the writers of Star Trek would actually challenge the viewing audience sometimes. Show us why the xenophobes have something to be afraid of. As it stands, we end up feeling sorry for the aliens (ok, yes the Xindi did kill 7 million or so humans but that was 2 yrs ago now!). Show us some more!!

Ok..enough venting.. what’s up with Trip? Why is he back on the Enterprise? I thought he got transferred to the Columbia? Did anyone else notice this???

There is a God I tell you. Why do I say that? Because American Idol finally booted Scott Savol from the list of contestants. Granted, he sounded good initially during the tryouts but my goodness he’s been pretty horrendous since. Of course, there was a website that was made to try and make sure Scott won the American Idol contest (called votefortheworst.com) but luckily that failed. So we have one other awful singer left in the competition - Anthony Fedorov (what is he saying half the time??)

Oh.. and quite frankly - who gives a #@*#$)@*! about Cory Clark? Even if his allegations were true - so what? He’s a loser for contending that American Idol hasn’t helped his career at all. Come on now.. just being on the show provides instant attention to you. And don’t tell me that all this publicity now isn’t generating attention for him and his upcoming book. One big L for this guy.

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Do you like or dislike cats? Read this posting on Craigslist.com. Funny! Thanks to Yvonne for sending it to me.

Georgie boy has previewed Episode III to reporters and new details about the story are now coming out (without much surprise at all). I didn’t realize that some cities were going to get an early look at the film on the 12th… but I have to wonder whether I will go out of my way to watch this flick. I’ve seen the ads for the third installment and I’m not all that excited. Ok so it has a PG-13 rating - big whoop. Let’s see if Lucas can get over the special effects addiction that he’s on and actually tell a real story for once.

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Well I’m back from Vegas now.. all safe and sound although a little bit under the weather. I never did get a chance to take any pictures but there are some pictures floating around the web from other people who went to Vegas this weekend. Then again.. whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas right? ha

The volleyball aspect of the trip was loads of fun although our team did not end getting any tshirts. We came in tied for second based on win-loss records but we lost based on the point system. Oh well.. try again later on in the year I suppose. There were dozens of volleyball teams in attendance this weekend which made for a fun time had by all.

What else about the trip - well it was one busy weekend in Vegas since the new Wynn hotel was opening up at the same time. My goodness.. please remind me to drive a rental next time? heck.. please remind me to just fly to Vegas instead of driving to Vegas from LA. The drive itself isn’t bad but a flight to Vegas is dirt cheap these days.

Anyhow, I never did get a chance to go to the Wynn hotel but maybe next time I’m in town. I heard from others that the hotel was nice but nothing to write home about. What exactly is the theme of the hotel anyhow? I’ll have to admit one thing though - the southern side of the hotel has an awesome afternoon reflection of the mountains.

Other notable things - Curtis taught me how to play craps this weekend which was loads of fun (and very addicting). I didn’t come out ahead or anything but I did learn a lot about luck. On the other side of the token, Steve showed me more ins and outs about No Limit Texas Holdem Poker and that was also very eye opening. I also ended up down but I learned one main thing - it’s better playing at Luxor than at Balleys.

Food was pretty good - the company was good.. all told, it was a nice weekend to get away from it all here in LA. I’ll have to go back there again sometime soon. Now, it’s time to prepare for work tomorrow. Ugh.