Carcassonne

So my aunt and uncle came by two days ago, and one of their gifts to my family (my family is far too large to buy individual gifts for, we know that) was a boardgame called Carcassonne, based on some town in southern France or somesuch nonsense. However, the game was actually really fun! Players take turns placing terrain tiles and basically growing the map, while simultaneously placing "followers" which can be monks (in the cloisters), thieves (on the roads), knights (in the castles), or farmers (in, believe it or not, the fields). Thus, your job is to to try to get the most profit from the constantly growing and evolving map, with a very limited number of followers to play. It was really quite stimulating. I was happy because I invested a lot of time and effort into my farmers (in the game I played with my aunt, uncle, and brother) which don't get counted until the end of the game. When the end of the game finally came, my farmers got counted and shot me from dead last to tied for second, three points behind the lead. Fun game, fun game.
Happy New Year!

Climategate

Ha.

HA.

HA!

HAHA!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!

So they really were making it up! For those of you who don't know, a severely inconvenient truth just came to light for Al Gore and and all of his global warming-warning pals. These were, to be exact, a batch of over 1000 emails hacked from the headquarters of the CRU (Climactic Research Unit). For those, like me, who didn't really know, the CRU is big. They provide a lot of the climate data used by the UN and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. From their headquarters in East Anglia School in England, we find such interesting quotes as these:

"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." -Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

"If they [referring to a pair of dogged critics] ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone." -Phil Jones, CRU Director

[In reference to some critical research] "I can't see either of these papers being in the next [UN] IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow--even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" -Phil Jones, CRU Director

Jones also gave adive on certain "tricks" that could be used "to hide the decline" in some temperature readings. Now, you all know I hate to say "I told you so," but let's face it: those conservative holdouts are feeling pretty happy right now.

This will be one of hopefully few politically bent posts, but since I get the feeling this won't make it to most mainstream news stations I felt responsible to spread this news. And to say "I told you so."

Happy New Year!

So, while I received many beautiful and wonderful Christmas presents this year (and also gave a few good ones, particularly to my parents), probably my favorite was the ten dollar, nine-inch long model of a Lamborghini Murcielago Connor gave me. I really don't have a rational explanation for my love for Lamborghinis. It probably stems from Need For Speed 2, a game which is by now archaic, to say the least.

However, something about the Lambo's refined roar, monstrous road speed, and sleek profile awakens my mostly-dormant speed-loving side. Who couldn't love this, really? Thing of beauty.

On a sidenote, the John Dillinger gangster fedora I got for my Dad went over real well, as did the jewelry box for my Mom. I'm also severely depressed about the state of the nation at the moment, but I refuse to dwell on such things so close to Christmastime. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts...

Communist Christmas Tree!

Well...on my first day home (wonderfully, gloriously home) I stayed up kinda late talking with my darling mother. She finally finished the absurd amount of baking she had assigned herself for that day when we both heard a loud sound, rather like a nuclear blast but louder.

Our fully decorated, fully lit, twelve-foot-high Christmas tree had made a desperate bid for freedom and fallen into the middle of the family room floor. Over a dozen delicate glass ornaments were the civilian casualties of the conflict, and Mom and I were up until 2:30 cleaning up the mess.

I therefore deduced that out Christmas tree is a Communist. Since it is coniferous, it could easily have come from the frozen wastelands of Eastern Russia. Since it did its level best to destroy my Christmas cheer and high spirits, it must be a Godless, capitalism-envying, bitter Communist, bent on destroying everything I hold dear. We have since restrained it with several lengths of string and fishing line, secure in our knowledge that the catastrophe will not be repeated.

The Russian government continues to maintain that they had nothing to do with the scandal. This obvious falsehood has sparked a controversy within the Soviet government. The ChristmasTreeGate scandal will doubtless go down in history as the event which sparked the beginning of the end for Soviet Russia.

Merry Christmas!

So today...I finally made it to church here (which is unusual, unfortunately...it's been tough not seeing my church family from back home), and then proceeded to draft a realistic plan for world peace ("Draft Realistic Plan For World Peace" is code for "Waste Time") for several hours, before finally getting down to work. After working laboriously for great lengths of time, I proceeded to watch a movie with my somewhat insistent friend-from-across-the-hall. I chose The Box, and I can't say I was impressed in the least. In the credits it said the movie was based on a short story. There's a problem there. A movie has the capability to tell a story much faster than a book. Obviously, a shorter book should mean a much shorter movie. This rule was ignored when they made The Box, and so you get long sequences of faux suspense with no explanation or plot development or anything useful at all. Then, of course, the movie ends with the "Neverending Cycle" kind of ending and makes you even madder. Who wrote that thing? Where they drunk? High? Trapped in the Matrix? All of the above? I mean, really, it was worthless.

At some point I shall add more videos to the list of cool youtube videos below, but not now. I have to have a foursome with Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod. Ciao, and Merry Christmas!

Fringe

Ahhh...I love Fringe. It is a TV show of great awesomeness and funniness. and it maketh me happy. However, I just wish that it would MAKE SENSE! PLEASE! After the latest episode I was like "Yes! This explains all my questions!" And then I realized "But wait! It just leaves me with twice as many NEW questions! AAAAAAAAAA----- (this is the part where I rammed my head against the wall)" I would say more, but I have an Econ exam today. Perhaps I shall write more today while I wait for my laundry to run.
Merry Christmas!

Brilliant!

I have a wonderful idea: I shall take a quick study break from writing by doing...MORE WRITING!! Aha! Betcha didn't see that one coming.

Speaking of 'brilliant,' don't you wish we used more English words in this country? I mean we technically speak English, but there are some words that get used in England a lot that I think would be cool to use as well. Brilliant is one of them, though I think my personal favorite is "smashing!" I don't see why we Americans haven't adopted it already...its short and to the point and emphasizes destroying things. Why do the English have it in the first place, really? It should be ours. Perhaps Obama can discuss this important issue when he's in England again, giving Gordon Brown a set of DVDs that won't work in England or giving the Queen an iPod filled with videos of his own speeches. *sigh*

Since my math teacher also teaches cryptography in the spring, I'm still debating as to whether or not I should challenge him thus: if I can make a code he can't crack, I get an A in the course. If he cracks it, then I take the exam anyway. Seems fair, right?
Merry Christmas!

Messiah

Am listening to Handel's Messiah on my BRAND NEW SPEAKERS!!! YAY!!! Full goes such: I work in the student store here at W&L, and about a week ago one of my bosses mentioned to me that they were going to put a $150 set of Klipsch speakers on sale for at least half off, if not more, and was I interested. Well, you can imagine my response. However, I was under the impression that I needed to wait until the sale officially begins on Friday to buy them, but as I passed through my boss said I could pick them up then. So I hit the Dining Hall then passed into the store (OK, I actually had to get them out of storage for him to ring them up) and returned triumphant with a sweet set of speakers, on which I now listen to the Messiah with great joy and happiness.

In other news, I just learned that "finals" is actually an acronym, which you should check out below only if you are not afraid of profanity and procrastination. If either of these offend you, TURN BACK NOW. Otherwise, its pretty appropriate:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20367753652

Atheism, Logic, and all that Jazz

So I've been in this debate with an evolutionist over YouTube (lame forum for debate, I know), and today he apparently decided to put the nail in my coffin (?). Having asked him to explain abiogenesis to me several times and receiving only vague references to other YouTube videos in response, I finally asked him to just link to me to one actual video detailing abiogenesis. His reply? That he wasn't going to bother to tell me things I should have learned in high school biology, and that if all I had were questions, we were done talking.
Is this good science? Usually if someone asks you a question you answer it, instead of pompously blowing them off. If the question's that easy it should be easy to answer, right? Why take all the time to insult me and my logic when you could just answer the question? And yet, it seems so indicative of some parts of the scientific community: "How dare you question us, worm?!? We're SCIENTISTS! We know everything! No, we won't answer your question because it's obviously wrong. Why? Because you're questioning us. And everybody who questions us is stupid. Go remove yourself from the gene pool."
Effectively, they close the matter to debate. YO! Science is never closed for debate! Theories thousands of year old (geocentric universe, for example) have been proven wrong by lone scientists willing to question the establishment. Good science, REAL science, never takes anything for granted, because you never know when something you've assumed was right your entire life will get turned on it's head.
So, to conclude rant: argue rationally and respectfully, please. Everyone. Even if someone says the sky is green, give them your fullest attention. One of you might have blue-green colorblindness, and he might actually be right.
Merry Christmas!

Racist!

I was going to rant about some things that happened during my recent RA application interview, but I think I'll save it. Suffice it to say I don't really get racism anymore. I haven't seen anyone being racist to anyone in my life, except in history documentaries. Why are people still proselytizing that we need more "change" and "acceptance" when...ahh, forget it. You can't change anything by having a temper tantrum. Even one so intellectual as mine.

I shall be having breakfast soon, which makes me think of waffles. I think the inventor of waffles genuinely was a genius. I mean, there was the guy who walked up to a cow and said "Hey! I think I'll squeeze these things and drink what comes out!" He was pretty stupid. But the guy (probably Belgian) who invented waffles was just like "Hey! Grill + Iron = Win!" Wafflewin, to be exact.

Soon I shall be putting a list (somewhere on this blog) of the fun YouTube videos I know of, with links. But for now, the wild waffles call to my deep heart's core. Ciao.