3.02.2009
Billborad Top 25 Pop Songs of 2008... In one song
2.28.2009
UAT LAN Party
2.20.2009
I Spell Car G-I-N-A
An Explanation
A Demonstration
Headlight Demonstration
I haven't been able to find any videos of the interior, only photos, but even the photos are enough to take your breath away:
Interior 01
Interior 02
Interior 03
Interior 04
Interior 05
Interior 06
Interior 07
Interior 08
You can see the entire gallery here
Me: i love you GINA
2.17.2009
News and Updates
Oh! I'm selling stuff on Amazon as well:
Familiar Leaves
The high school boy walking through the park with me today looks miserable. It’s his own damn fault. Probably thought community service would look good on his resume. Now he’s miserable because he has to walk an old man through the park. To hell with him. I can walk through the park fine on my own. It’s probably those orderlies again, trying to make me feel useless they are! Well, it is what it is. I’m smiling as the snow crunches beneath my boots. I look up and see a leafless oak tree…
Another short story ___
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Smalltime
“Okay, I’ve got one”, Mark said with a grin, “the priest with the erection in The Little Mermaid.” Derek smiled smugly and declared, “Nope, not true.” “What do you mean no?” “It was his knee.” “That’s not what I heard.” “It’s true! I Snoped it!” “You did what?” Mark asked. “I looked it up on Snopes. I Snoped it.” “You made that up.” “I did indeed” Derek proclaimed proudly. “I’ve got another one”, Mark said continuing before Derek could argue, “There’s a cloud of dust in the Lion King that looks like the word ‘SEX’.” “Not quite.” “Oh! Come on!” “It actually says ‘SFX’”, Derek said with an all too familiar smugness, “It was an easter egg put in by the effects animators.” “That settles it; you have way too much free-time.” “That’s not true, I work very hard!” “You watch movies!” “No, I review movies for a respected newspaper.” “Since when was the ‘Irving Times’ a respected newspaper?” “$60,000 a year says it’s very respectable.” There was an awkward silence as Mark’s argument crumpled under the weight of Derek’s paycheck.
It was just after 12 o’clock and the street was nearly empty. It was a warm Tuesday afternoon. Cheap looking plastic banners were still attached to lampposts on the street proudly announcing an art exhibition by some semi-famous and highly overrated sculptor. The date on the banners said April 14th-April 16th. It was now the middle of June and the banners were in a sad state. The Taco Bell parking lot Mark’s car was idling in was empty save for a few of the employee’s cars. Derek had brought along a novel that he had been meaning to finish. He was reading it now. Mark had brought along an old Hustler magazine he had found wedged between the cushions of his couch, but didn’t especially feel like reading it in a Taco Bell parking lot next to his best friend. For now the smut stayed under Mark’s seat. Mark looked at the street lamp banners for a while and then looked at his watch. 12:17. 13 minutes to go. He thought briefly about getting a Burrito but decided that he wasn’t hungry. Instead he looked at a window advertisement that claimed that it was never too late for “Fourthmeal”. Mark looked at his watch again, 12:18. 12 minutes to go. He took a peek over Derek’s shoulder to see what he was reading,
“In quantum mechanics, the forces or interactions between matter particles are all supposed to be carried by particles of integer spin – 0, 1, or 2. What happens is that a matter particle, such as an electron or a quark, emits a force-carrying particle. The recoil from this emission changes…”
“What the hell are you reading Derek”, Mark asked while recoiling in horror as it appeared that his friend was reading an instructional manual for an atomic bomb. “It’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ by Stephen Hawking.” Mark’s eyes lit up, “The robot dude!” “He’s not a robot, he’s…”, Derek began then continued with a sigh, “Yes, the robot dude.” “Sweet.” “So, tell me again about this guy we’re picking up”, Derek asked tossing the book into the back seat, “Where did you meet him?” “Steve’s an old friend from college that I bumped into at the video store.” “I didn’t know you went to college”, exclaimed a surprised Derek, “What did you major in?” “Philosophy” Derek’s eyes bugged out, “You have a degree in philosophy?!?” Mark laughed, “Of course not! I dropped out in the second semester.” Derek changed the subject, “Over the phone you said this was going to be dangerous, how dangerous are we talking about here?” “You want to know the plan?” “Yes, that would be most ideal.”
“We wait here until 12:30 then drive across the street to the bank where Steve runs out and ‘hijack’s’ my car.” “Why is Steve ‘hijacking’ your car?” “Well, for one, he’s paying us to”, Mark explained, “and if we are involved in a high-speed chase, the cops are less likely to ram a car with hostages inside.” “I almost hate to ask this but, why would we be involved in a high speed chase with the police?” “Because of all the money Steve stole”, Mark said cheerfully.
“So, basically, we’re robbing a bank”, Derek said with an amount of calm in his voice that should not have been possible, “You made this sound a lot safer over the phone.” “No, we are never even entering the bank. We are just innocent bystanders who were forced to drive the bank robber to Mexico.” Derek looked unconvinced of the validity of this plan, “What’s our cut again?” “$5000 to split between the two of us.” Derek did some quick math, “That’s only $2500 for me, that’s 1/24th of my yearly paycheck.” Another potentially awkward silence was averted by a quick interjection from Mike, “You’ve mentioned before wanting to branch out from movie reviews, I’ll bet this would make a great article.” “Mmmmmnnh”, Derek said. Mike looked down at his watch, “It’s time, you in or out?” “Ah, what the hell, I’ve got nothing better to do.” Mike pulled out of the Taco Bell parking lot feeling vaguely hungry, and drove across the street to the First Bank of Irving. Then they waited.
Steve was late. “It’s been five minutes”, Derek said nervously. Mike said nothing as his car continued to idle. Mike was busy watching more and more customers enter the bank. “What happens if the police catch us”, Derek asked. “Steve did the math; there are just over 400 employees of the Irving Police Department. Only a few of those are actually patrol officers, and only a few of those patrol officers are on beat right now”, Mike said reassuringly, “It’s 12:35 so most of the cops are having lunch.” “Not all of them are having lunch though, what about the ones still patrolling?” “Well, Steve said…” Mike was interrupted by the screeching entrance of a car into the bank parking lot. “Is that Steve”, Derek asked pointing at the man who had jumped out of the car that had just arrived wearing a black ski mask and brandishing a gun. “I guess so”, Mark said nervously as Steve rushed through the bank doors and fired three shots in the air. It was obvious by the looks on both Mark and Derek’s faces that neither of them had expected an armed robbery would be so violent. As the minutes went by the tension in the car increased until it felt like trying to breath while incased in a stick of butter. Derek fumbled for his book and tried to read but found himself reading the sentence about the exchange of electrons between atoms in gravity waves over and over again. Meanwhile Mark was trying desperately to think about the best route to Mexico from the bank but kept getting distracted by the occasional loud demands of Steve from inside the bank.
Suddenly four shots rang out. Steve limped out of the bank carrying two bags full of cash then jerked the back door to Mike’s car open and screamed hoarsely, “DRIVE!” Mike fumbled with the keys for a minute then bolted out of the Bank’s parking lot. As Mike entered the on ramp to the highway there was a loud thud from the back seat. Steve had collapsed onto the floor knocking over one of the bank bags spilling twenties haphazardly. Derek twisted his body to see what had happened and saw Steve lying on the floor with blood pooling out from two holes in his side and one in his thigh. “Jesus, Mike he’s been shot”, Derek said turning pale, “What do we do?” Mike didn’t answer, his knuckles were white and his eyes kept darting to the rearview mirror. “Mike! What do we do”, Derek yelled grabbing Mike’s shoulders and shaking him, “What do we do?” “I don’t know! This wasn’t part of the plan”, he snapped, “Let me think!” Derek didn’t say anything, every few minutes he thought he heard a police siren but it always turned out to be a passing truck. “Is he still bleeding”, Mike asked breaking the silence. Derek turned around again, “Yeah, he’s still bleeding.” “Then he’s still alive, we keep going”
Thirty minutes later Mike asked again. Derek twisted around again. Steve was dead. Mike pulled off the highway near Forreston and onto a dirt road. After a few miles he stopped the car. “We have to get Steve out.” Derek nodded and they both got out of the car. “I’ll drag him out by his legs and then you grab his arms”, Mike said as if Steve was an old piece of furniture. Derek gulped and nodded his head. They dragged him to a ditch about two hundred feet from the road and hid him in a patch of tall grass. Mike emptied Steve’s pockets. As they were walking back to the car Mike opened Steve’s wallet, he gasped then ran back over to Steve’s body and removed his ski cap. Derek ran over to Mike, “What’s wrong?” Mike smiled then began to laugh until tears came from his eyes. “What”, asked Derek in a panicked voice, “What’s wrong?” Mike wiped the tears from his eyes and sat on the ground, “This isn’t Steve.” “What!?!” “You heard me, it’s some guy named Frank Wilkinson.” “Who the hell is Frank Wilkinson?” “No idea, never seen him before in my life.” Derek was confused, “Was he someone who Steve hired?” Mike shrugged, “Maybe, probably not. Steve probably chickened out and this guy just happened to be robbing the bank.” “What’s so funny then?” “Have you counted the money in the bags?” Derek ran back to the car just as Mike burst into laughter again. Five minutes later Derek came back and sat down next to Mike and began laughing with him. “How much do we have?” “$600,000, give or take a few stray twenties”, Derek said giggling. They both got up and headed back to the car. Derek looked at Mike, “How far do we have to go till we get to the border?” “From Forreston? About 400 miles, we should get there in about six hours.” “I don’t have my passport; do you think we’ll get through ok?” “Getting into Mexico will be no problem”, Mike said grinning; “Getting back into the States is what we have to worry about.” Mike started the engine, “We’re almost out of gas.” “With $600,000 dollars in the back seat gas doesn’t seem so expensive anymore.” Mike turned on the radio and the news started playing. There wasn’t even a mention of a bank robbery. As they filled up the car with gas Mike said, “You know, looking back on the whole thing, I think that turned out pretty well.” “It went even better than expected”, Derek said while doing some math in his head, “We got 240 times more money than was originally planned.” They paid then got back in the car. Mike turned on the radio. “I still can’t believe I earned $300,000 today” Derek marveled, “That’s five times my yearly payc…” Mike turned the volume on the radio up all the way.
2.16.2009
Project Billy
After laughing my ass off I once again reset Billy's memory and decided to have a conversation using only quotes from the movie The Usual Suspects. This conversation has a bit of harsh language in it so I've colored the text black. To read the conversation just highlight the blank space with your mouse:
1.06.2009
Fallout 3
If at this point you have no idea what I'm talking about, Fallout 3 is a video game that takes place in an alternate universe where the world never veered from 1950's ideals and aesthetics. In the game it is the year 2277, 200 years after a great nuclear war devastated much of the world. Your mission is to escape the oppressive vault (a massive underground shelter built before the war) and to find your father who recently escaped from the vault. Along the way you will fight villains and slightly more irradiated monsters (I forget... is 3000 rads slight?). If you are still not with me, a video game is an entertainment device that makes pretty colors and sounds.
One game mechanic I really wanted to test is what would happen if I overloaded the game engine. So I went out and bought the PC version of the game (keep in mind the fact that I am in college so this means that I will forgo food for the next few months because of this purchase).
How I would go about overloading the game was simple, I would access the debugging function of the game and find a small enclosed room within the game that would be perfect for spawning a whole mess of Deathclaw's.
If you don't already know, a Deathclaw looks like this.
There is a small bar in the dilapidated city of Megaton (the city is built around an unexploded bomb) that fits the bill quite nicely. It's small, enclosed, and full of test subjects. Once in the bar I press the "~" key to open the debugging window and type in:
player.placeatme 000AF836, 50, 1, 1
What this code does is to spawn 50 Deathclaw's (represented by the hex code "000AF836") right at my position. Now, ordinarily, I'd be dead before I could blink, but I took precautions against this by using the debugging feature to make myself invulnerable earlier. The fact that I'm also floating well beyond the reach of any Deathclaw a feat also accomplished by using the debugging feature.
The carnage was incredible. Pretty much everybody (excepting me) was dead within seconds. In fact, they died so quickly that their bodies were forever frozen in midair, stretched beyond human limits, their twisted faces attesting to the surprise of having dozens of killing machines appear out of thin air. Naturally I took many pictures which I will now present here:





Join me next time as I continue to exploit the horrifying Fallout 3 universe.
11.22.2008
It's All About The 'Gyver!
I love Hulu and Youtube, but Joost will always hold a special place in my heart as the only (or at least the most legal) way to watch every MacGyver episode free. You only have to put up with 3 to 4 30-second commercials per episode and you don't have to sign up or anything! To whet your appetite, I present you with the opening credits for MacGyver in all it's 80's goodness:
P.S. Sorry about the non-widescreen resolution. I had to mess with the embed code a bit to have it fit inside the margins of the post. If you want to see the 640x360 resolution click Here (the video starts after the commercial).
11.12.2008
10.13.2008
The Godfather: Ruined
9.22.2008
New Crazy Talk Video
Unfortunately, since it is a demo the watermark is still there. I would buy the program but it's $50. I need to decide whether I want to spend $50 bucks on a program that I would use maybe once or twice a month.
9.17.2008
You: (Hearty Laughter)
Me: (Knowing Smile)
8.22.2008
The Clone Wars
Here are some choice quotes from reviews at IMDB:
- "The acting and characters are wooden and two dimensional..."
- "Stiff animation makes everyone come across as a cross between an action figure and a Thunderbird..."
- "...disappointingly shallow, dull, and unneeded side story..."
- "This movie fails on every level. It begins with, I kid you not, the announcer from The Powerpuff Girl's voice replacing the opening crawl we've come to know and love, presumably because the target audience, American children, can't read at even that glacial pace. I don't know if it's even necessary at this point to say something as redundant as 'this movie has a horrible script and stiff acting;' that's just something we've come to expect with Star Wars in the last decade."
Then why go see it you ask? I need to... I'm compelled to because it's Star Wars! It could be a movie about farting Taun-tauns and I'd see it if it was Star Wars. Apparently I'm not alone, it earned $14.6 million on it's opening weekend. The fact is that I'm going to see a movie that I know won't be good. Why?
Although the Star Wars Franchise in general has gone steadily downhill since George Lucas released the "remastered" versions of the original films and even more so with the so-called prequels, Star Wars fans don't seem to care. Sure we may groan and whine about how each of the prequels sucked in thier own special way (they did by the way), but with every new prequel that came out we lined up (and some of us even camped out) in droves to see the new steaming pile of shit that George had squeezed out. It's not because we're stupid or believed that this one was going to be the one that breathed new life into the franchise; we knew full well that "Revenge of the Sith" was going to suck (although we always did hold out a bit of hope). We saw it because there is something special about a world where good and evil have epic battles with lightsabers, because there is something magical in a world where the force exists, theres something so wonderful about the entire Star Wars universe that we just can't miss any part of it. We saw those movies and will continue to see them because we love Star Wars, and we're so eager to learn about every new facet of that universe that we're willing to sit through a bad movie to learn about it. No matter how bad the Clone Wars is, I'll sit through it and even enjoy parts of it. Not because those parts were particularly well written, but because I'm watching my favorite universe grow.
8.05.2008
It's been a while since my last post so now it's time to bring the funny back!
Saving Private Snickers
Batman Should Tone It Down
The Dark Black Knight
Dark Knight Deleted Scene
As You May Have Noticed, I Am On A Batman Binge
Here's something not Batman related. Several balloons, I think each had the name of an orphan attached to it, were released at a United Way charity event in England and something very special happened:
7.04.2008
Rock-afire Explosion
Madonna - 4 Minutes
Usher - Love In This Club
Here's the guy's website: www.starsof.com/fans
6.22.2008
Generic Country Song #42
I just shot my dog on account of the rabies,
I've been under the weather all week,
My wife up and left me,
My kids say they hate me,
Man, what a hell of a week
Chorus:
And I'm so blue,
I can't see the sky,
I'm wonderin' why God, he hates me,
I'm thinkin''bout cryin',
I'm wonderin' 'bout dyin',
When did the world get so mean?

Generic Country Song #42 (Unfinished Rough Draft) by Brogan Zumwalt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
6.21.2008
Star Trek - Captain's Orders
Here are some more Star Trek parodies (ones that I didn't make):
6.11.2008
Presidential Loose Yourself
My Senior Portfolio
P.S. I'll be releasing the last clip by itself soon.
6.09.2008
Star Trek
I'll give a few examples:
- "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
Nurse Chapel searches for her long lost fiancé, and uncovers his secret plan for galactic conquest. - "Shore Leave"
The crew of the Enterprise visits a bizarre planet, encountering the rabbit from "Alice in Wonderland", fighter planes and Samurai. - "Spock's Brain"
Captain Kirk pursues aliens who have stolen Spock's brain. - "The Way to Eden"
The Enterprise is hijacked by a criminal doctor and his loyal, hippie-like followers who are attempting to find paradise.
And here's a few from Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- "Darmok"
Picard struggles to communicate with an alien Captain who speaks in metaphors, before an invisible beast kills them both. - "Bloodlines"
DaiMon Bok returns to exact revenge on Picard, by trying to kill the son Picard never knew he had.