Krunk4Ever!

Despite what you may be thinking, Audrey is cdmcc’s and Elizabeth’s dog. Cdmcc and Elizabeth went back to San Francisco this Thanksgiving and asked me to look over their dog for them while they were gone. So the reasons why I never wanted a pet dog or puppy, although they’re so cute, is all showing up in Audrey. So I was warned that Audrey likes biting stuff, but I didn’t know that biting involved such wreckage. When I got home on Wednesday after cdmcc dropped Audrey off and we locked her in my bedroom, I find my window blinds shredded to pieces, and by that, I mean over 50% of them were torn off the actual blinds and broken into bits and pieces. So yah, she’s no longer allowed near anything that is even remotely breakable. I actually have her tied to a pole in the restroom which gives her about 8ft raidus to move about, much more lenient than what I think I should be restraining her to. So I’m going to have to talk to the management about getting that replaced. For now, I have a bed sheet covering the window.

Before, I had her tied to the cage and not a pole, so she actually managed to pull the cage some distance and reach areas which I didn’t want her to reach. Thank god, she only got access to several grocery plastic bags, but when I got home today, they were shredded like there was no tomorrow. I’m also happy that I fixed the door to my computer room before I left because before the door wouldn’t close properly and you could push and it’ll open. Somehow, she managed to get my laundry doors opened, but those were sliding doors (sort of).

Next thing is Audrey actually peed on the floor. I guess I shouldn’t have given her such a big bowl of water. She’s already peed 3x on my floor, though cleaning it up wasn’t that bad. She hasn’t pooped on my floor yet and has been keen about pooping when I take her on her walks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she takes a dump in here too.

The final annoying thing is she always seem to need attention whenever she sees someone. She would even bark and howl if you ignore her, and that got quite annoying at 2am in the morning.

I feel bad about tying her to the restroom. In fact, I originally locked her in the bathroom, but felt bad and I couldn’t figure if I should leave the light on or off, so I opened the door and gave her a bit more freedom. Welp, only 4 more days to go. Hopefully I’ve seen the worse of it.

First, I gotta wish my buddy a happy birthday:
Happy Birthday Belldandy!

I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was enjoyable and fun. I actually got invited to a little get-together with stanman and his friends from UW. Met some of the cool people I met at the little poker tournament stanman held over a month ago: Richard, Joe, and Saran. “More” people were suppose to come, but they ditched last minute, hehe. Anyway, we had a little potluck. Everyone made these really cool dishes. All I took care was the drinks. I know, lazy me, but I did get a 12pk of Pyramid Hefe Weizen, though only 3 got drank, and none of them was by me. I hate beer for all those that know me. So I have 9 beers in my fridge right now. Saran made some salad with oil and vinegar dressing. The dressing was really good. He also made soup that consisted of shrimp, chili, and some other random vegies. Richard made the mashed potatio with garlic and gravy. The mash potato was good, but it had too many garlic skins in it, which would’ve been nice if were removed beforehand, but I’m not the one to complain. He also served the bread and butter and made the cranberry sauce which was really good. Stanman was going to make Teriyaki glazed salmon, but the Teriyaki part didn’t work out that well, so he changed it to lemon salmon, which was delicious, but a little burnt due to a little mishap during cooking. Joe was the biggest contributor. He made the ham, which was cooked. He also made the stuffing with Stove Top Stuffing. Ungsunghero tells me the inventor of Stove Top Stuffing died this Thanksgiving. He also made sweet corn kernels. I forgot who brought the strawberry pie (I’m thinking Richard), but that was good too. We had a loads of fun eating and everyong got really stuffed.

I found someone else like Liam. Richard also is a vegetarian because of environmental reasons. However he does eat fish and seafood (the fake meat). Only difference between him and Liam is that Liam eats chicken and other birds, while Richard doesn’t.

One of the interesting thing that came up during dinner was eggnog. I’ve always hated eggnog. It had a funny taste that I didn’t like. So I obviously declined. Stanman, having never tried eggnog, decided to give it a go. You should’ve seen the face he made when he drank it. Haha. Too bad we didn’t have a camera. If you haven’t figured it out yet, stanman decided never to drink eggnog again. I’ve noticed that people either really loved eggnog or really dislike eggnog. There’s really no in-between I like it somewhat. I wonder why that is…

Afterwards, we watched Shiri, a Korean movie I’ve watched with Liam, janey, cdmcc, and several other people who I don’t remember right now. The movie is fun and action packed, but didn’t really have that punch of a good film. It required some thinking, but it was like “BANG BANG BANG, Oh… so that’s what happened, BANG”. I would rather much watch something like Oldboy (trailer). Not really going to do a synopsis of it.

After Shiri ended, we played Halo 2. Since there were 5 people and only 4 controllers, we took turns. I think the order of skill went like this (from highest to lowest): Joe, Richard, stanman, Saran, me. Haha, I sucked. Though I did win most of my matches. Probably because my partner was usually good. hehe.

All in all, I had a really great time. We might be going up to Vancouver this weekend, but I’m not sure if I want to go since it is raining and all. Plus I have a dog I’m taking care for cdmcc and Elizabeth over this break and man has he caused me quite some trouble already. More on that later.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

(from Pet Health Care Information)

I was going to do a pya! flood, but I got lazy. Maybe tomorrow.

Welp, as you might’ve known, the Xbox 360 launched today. There’s been so much buzz. People who had it preordered were even in line late last night or early this morning just to get it. People who preordered even got calls apologizing and that their order will be delayed by a few weeks. The interesting thing is that many of the Xbox 360s are being sold on eBay for much much more than the retail cost. The highest one I’ve seen was sold at $5,100. These aren’t cheap consoles either, with the core system at $399 and the starter system with the hard drive and the extra goodies at $499. You should read the article at Ars Technica and see how absurd the shortages are.

Random Crap:

Quarter Stacks (from deadlock) - taken from stileproject, but I’ll spare you the *cough* ads.

Dog with long tongue (from deadlock). Video is hosted on stileproject, so be careful.

Sweet Christmas Lights (direct link) (from msticazn). I first saw this on the Microsoft newsgroups and was planning to upload it, but then msticazn sent me this link, so I’m decided to link you to it instead. UCSD can spare some bandwidth. It’s basically christmas lights dancing along to the song, but really awesome. The song’s really familiar, but the title slips my mind for now.

Police Hit Man in Genitals With Taser - But one of the gun’s prongs accidentally hit Miljour’s genitals and got stuck, Chitwood said. … “The Taser is relatively accurate, but when someone is moving like that, it doesn’t matter if you have a Taser, or a pistol. (Officers) can’t aim,” Chitwood said. Ouch! and we already knew officers can’t aim.

Town votes to rename itself Secretsanta.com - Officials in the northern Idaho town of Santa, Idaho, on Monday voted to rename the 115-person hamlet Secretsanta.com to hype an online gift exchange management service. … In 2000, Halfway, Oregon agreed to call itself Half.com after an Internet retailer later purchased by eBay Inc. I didn’t know Half.com had a city named after it.

Fugitive murder suspect found - on TV - An eagle-eyed investigator’s wife ended a Russian manhunt by spotting a murder suspect’s name in the credits of a television show, a newspaper said Tuesday.

Lightweight Ninja - downloaded the demo and the game was easy and fun. Somewhat like a mix between Sonic and Mario.

Ready2005.com - not really too sure what the flash video is saying, but it seems to be advertising Visual Studio 2005 in Korean. The tune’s catchy though.

PhotoBlocker - got this from a Microsoft newsgroup. Interesting things to prevent the cameras from catching your license plate #.

Throw another Skippy on the barbie? - How do you like your kangaroo — medium rare? Doesn’t sound too appealing, does it? So in a bid to make Australia’s national icon more palatable, Food Companion International magazine and the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia are running a competition to find a more palatable culinary name for the meat of the hopping marsupials.

Semi-naked models drive motorists to distraction - Almost a quarter of British motorists admit they have been so distracted by roadside billboards of semi-naked models that they have dangerously veered out of their lane. I wonder what would happen if there were fully-naked models. *whistles*

Free school breakfast menu to offer coffee - Brazil’s coffee industry has brewed up a plan to serve up to 1 million schoolchildren a free breakfast — complete with a cup of java. That’s right! Get them addicted when they’re young.

That’s incredibly beautiful…give me a hammer… - If you thought art galleries were quiet havens of contemplation, think again. Looking at great works of art can inspire a strong, sometimes irresistible urge to destroy, Italian researchers have found. I don’t think it has to be art. I personally like destroying stuff. Give me a hammar and something to break, and I get tons of fun outta it. How many times have you wanted to be in one of those big wrecking ball cranes and knock buildings down? Or is that just me…? It’s like fire. It’s so cool! Yet so dangerous! If I didn’t know how much things cost, taking all my stuff to the 20-story building roof and dropping them down and see them go SPLAT sounds like something I’d have a lot of fun doing.

Metal Gear Solid 4 - HD Trailer (direct download) - got this off bittorrent. The quality is amazing, but it seems like this is probably going to be an in-game movie. I wonder how the quality of the actual game play is.

Saber Marionette J to X Episode 6 - Phase 06: Two Otarus!? The Tightrope of Love

Another filler episode, but Bloodberry actually starts falling for a different guy other than Otaru!

Spoilers:

In this episodes, Bloodberry has a date with Otaru. She even went into the kitchen and made 2 bento boxes, one for herself and one for Otaru. As Azumanga Daioh calls it, it’s the bento box of love. You have to understand, Bloodberry never does the kitchen work. That’s always been Cherry’s job. She’s the muscle and the hotty. The kitchen was in total ruins after she was done with it. However, when Otaru showed up, he brought Lime along. Lime had insisted to come see the circus too. Bloodberry was so pissed and dashed off. While wandering around, she ended up at the circus and met the star, a tightrope walker named Akashi. At first she mistakened him to be Otaru cause it was basically Otaru with green long hair. Akashi’s and Otaru’s personality was completely different. Akashi would hold her hand, hug her, laugh with her, be only with her, and her maiden circuit was going crazy and she wasn’t sure if she was starting to have feelings for him. Somehow Bloodberry ended up in the act and Otaru saw her. He came to apologize, but Bloodberry didn’t really give him a chance to before Akashi to her to join the after party. That night, Bloodberry had many many things on her mind and began comparing Otaru with Akashi. A moment afterwards, she couldn’t believe she was actually comparing someone against Otaru. When she was about to leave, Akashi comes from behind and hugs her and says, “Tomorrow’s our last showing in this town, and I would very much like it if you were to come with me. I don’t need you to make up your mind right now, but I hope to hear good news from you tomorrow.” The next day during practice, Bloodberry suddenly stops during the act and leaves the tent. Akashi chases after her and finds Bloodberry kneeling on the floor crying. She apologizes and says she was only confusing him with her master and was really sorry for causing so much trouble. Akashi shrugs it off like nothing and said that he already knew she had someone else in mind because her eyes always seem to look through him. That night, Otaru dropped by again because Bloodberry didn’t come home. Akashi runs out and punches him and says, “Don’t let me know that you ever hurt Bloodberry’s feelings again.” He then rushes back in. Bloodberry comes out and Otaru tries to apologize again, but Bloodberry’s already crying and says, “I’m so terrible. I really hurt hsi feelings.” Otaru hugs her while she cries.

I was watching Detective Conan today and the validity of the dying message was denied because “obviously” someone shot through the heart would no longer be able to move or attempt to write the letter ‘S’ using her blood. Despite the gun used was a double barrel shotgun, I still have my doubts about the “obvioustisity” of the claim that the cops in Detective Conan were stating.

So I asked around some bio people:
If you were shot through the heart, would you still be able to move? Would it basically be like suffocating or a heart attack? Or are you dead instantaneously, sort of like if I shot you through the brain? Feel free to replace “you” with anyone you don’t like.

I think I may have scared some people when I instant messaged them with that question. No, I do not believe in using guns to kill people, but slicing off people’s head is another story.

It turns out, many agree you won’t die instantaneously, like the second after you’re shot, but you will very soon after if the shot was fatal.

Unusually low mortality of penetrating wounds of the chest. Twelve years’ experience (from hkenshin):

Within a 12-year period ending in March 1984, 1109 patients with penetrating thoracic injuries were treated at King-Drew Medical Center located in south central Los Angeles. The average age of the patients was 28.1 years. There were 607 stab wounds and 502 gunshot wounds. Antibiotic prophylaxis was prescribed only for the 428 patients who had laparotomy, thoracotomy, and pulmonary contusion with hemoptysis. Of the 1109 patients, 105 had cardiac injuries. All patients with cardiac trauma underwent thoracotomy, and the mortality rate was 18.1%. Specifically, the mortality rate of gunshot wound of the heart 24.5% and that of stab wound of the heart, 11.5%. In contrast, of the 1004 patients without cardiac injuries, only 115 required thoracotomy and the mortality rate in this group was 0.8% (8/1004). The mortality rate was 69.6% in patients who had a thoracotomy in the emergency room but only 2.8% in patients who had a thoracotomy in the operating room within the first 24 hours after admission. In the 242 patients who had associated abdominal injuries, the mortality rate was 2.1% (5/242), as compared with 2.5% (22/867) for those who had isolated chest injuries. In the entire group, the incidence of complications was 5.1%, of which 1.8% were infectious complications. The presence of associated abdominal injuries did not influence the outcome. The mortality rate in noncardiac thoracic injuries is very low compared with that of cardiac injury. Because of the complexity of the injury, gunshot wound of the heart has the highest mortality rate.

I would attempt a guess that a gunshot wound, even a very big bullet hole through your heart, would be something like a cardiac arrest (heart attack), but the big difference, is that you’re going to have blood spilling out as hkenshin noted. I would say I’d still be able to move or twitch around a bit after a shot through the heart.

Decathanerd believes I need to conduct some studies and gather empirical evidence to validate my claim. I think the funnest part would be selecting my “volunteers”. Anyone that knows I don’t like you, please e-mail me. I’ve got a fun task that you’d die to know about!

So being curious how cloning worked, I went and asked my bio-friend ungsunghero. The following may be over-simplified, but you should be able to get a grasp on how it works. Apparently to clone mammals, all you need is an egg of the same species and genetic information of the mammal you want to clone. A sperm is not required, which was quite shocking to me. To clone a mammal, you remove the entire nucleus from the egg and replace it with a nucleus from a donor cell. By doing this, you completely trash the original genetic information that the egg carried and by replacing it with a nucleus from a donor cell, you’ve given it the full set of genetic information instead of of half set that the original nucleus had. That’s why a sperm is NOT required at all. And with the full set of DNA, it can start generating cells and creating the mammal once you put it back inside a host.

You can read more about it at Summary of all published reports on mammalian cloning - Somatic cell nuclear transfer (cloning) efficiency.

Wikipedia: Somatic cell nuclear transfer (from decathanerd). Another confirmation on how it works. Apparently, it’s suppose to be as simple as sticking a needle into a egg, sucking out the nucleus, and then injecting the new nucleus. It is then stimulated in such a way that it begins to divide. Wonder what that really means…

Random Crap:

Doki Doki Panic: Special Feature (from ungsunghero) - Did you know Super Mario Bros. 2 was just a skin on a completely different game released in Japan called Doki Doki Panic? They actually made a Super Mario Bros. 2 that was a sequel to the 1st one (no pulling turnips from the ground), but decided this should be the sequel instead. However, this game was released later known as Super Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels.

SONGS TO WEAR PANTS TO (from deadlock) - I make songs in any genre, for free or for money, based on instructions people send me. This guy is so awesome! You should definitely check out some of the songs he made:

• Beware the Sea Anenemone (Definitely Anememones Remix)
• Napoleode (Featuring EKO)

Several flash videos actually used the songs he made:

• How the Jonses’ 23rd Goldfish Narrowly Escaped Death (creator’s blog)
• The Touchtone Genius

Mortal Kombat VS Street Fighter (from ungsunghero) - Apparently this is the 1st one that came out before the 2nd one I posted a day ago. There’s actually quite a few of these at The Kobmat Pavilion.

Laser etched Powerbook! (from /.) - I didn’t really plan using a $20,000 laser cutter on my 17″ Powerbook to etch a 19th-century engraving of a tarsier, a nocturnal mammal related to the lemur (also the vi book cover image, from O’Reilly), but it seemed like it had to done. The results are stunning - photos and more…

nathanng’s Gallery - a friend of mine from E190 back in Berkeley. His drawings are really good!

Bleach Episode 58

This episode was just amazing! Tons of really cool fights were drawn and we finally got to see Ichigo’s sword in BANKAI form. A bit disappointing though, but still so radically cool!

Spoilers:

I was totally expecting Ichigo’s bankai to be some gigantic sword, but it turns out the sword has shrunk into super cool black sword. I mentioned it was a bit disappoint, but probably that’s because I haven’t seen what his BANKAI can do yet. So far all he’s done is fast movement, slashes, and defending against the sakura petals of Byakuya’s bankai. Ooooooh! I can’t wait for the next episode. How he activates his bankai is really cool too! And apparently his bankai changes his clothing, which I guess is normal since the same thing happened during Renji’s bankai.

I just finished watching this anime series today and it sure has brought back many happy memories and created many new cute and funny memories for me. The series is called Azumanga Daioh (あずまんが大王). If you’re a fan of kittens and uber-cuteness, this is a must watch. In short, the series is about 6 (or 7) high school female students and 2 high school female teachers and their little journeys together through high school. As I told my buddies online, the series was so cute, I couldn’t stand any more cuteness after 2 episodes and have to give it some time out. It’s licensed in USA by ADVFilms, so you can probably find the entire series at your local anime store.

Memories it brought back:

• Sideways Stories from Wayside School
  
  Oh My God! I loved the Wayside School series. Louis Sachar was a genius for making such fun books. Haha, remember the floor that didn’t exist or the three Erics? And how Louis (the author) was the yard teacher in charge of distributing the balls during recess? Anyway, there was a boy named Paul in the class room and he sat behind a girl named Leslie that had 2 pigtails (or was it 1?). And he could never concentrate on what the teacher was saying because Leslie’s pigtails would be swinging in front of him and he would always be yearning to pull it. And finally one day, he got enough courage to pull it. Looks like Osaka is in the same situation as Paul and Chiyo-chan is in the same situation as Leslie.
• High School Graduation
  The last few episodes of Azumanga was a bit nostalgic since it reminded me of high school graduation and everyone was so sad that they were all going in seperate directions. But these memories were also precious and sweet because it reminded me of the good times. Haha, which reminds me of yesterday when stanman and I were talking about Science Olympiad. Some of my most memorable times of Science Olympiad was when mechy and I built that airplane and how it would always work in the regionals but always fail at state (for BOTH years) and the time when crabyaple, kalekkos, and I pulled that all-nighter before the competition to “attempt” to finish building Mission Possible.
• Fear of the darkness
  
  Sure brings back memories of when I’ll run from room to room at night and running toward the light switch to turn it on. hehe.
• It also brought back a lot more, but it’s been several months since I started watching the series. Maybe I’ll add to this when I think of more.

New memories it created:

• The new wild kitten (iriomote): Maya

• Chiyo-chan in the penguin costume

• Maybe I’ll post more uber cuteness later.

It’s been awhile since I checked http://www.xombified.com/. Apparently, they’re also making an animated movie: Xombie, hence the reason why the new chapters have been slow. I dont remember seeing the newer chapters, but my memory’s a bit wavy. Here are the chapters:

Chapter 1: The Dead Sea
Chapter 2: Cadillacs & Cadavers
Chapter 3: Grinding Organs
Chapter 4: Relics & Reptiles
Chapter 5: The Exhibit (Reel 1 / Reel 2)
Chapter 6: The Hands of God

I’ve made direct links to the flash videos instead of the page that displays them because for some reason, they decided that it would look better in 360 x 270. Well, maybe for slower systems, it might be choppy at higher resolutions, but since all the graphics are vector based, it looks really sweet in full screen, especially when you have a 24″ LCD running @ 1920 x 1200. The producer says he’s 50% done with Chapter 7, and hopes to have a ETA soon.