Harry Potter = Luke Skywalker

Brilliant

Jesus Camp

I finally got a bit of time to dive into the Netflix pile, and the one on top was Jesus Camp.

I'm not going to write a full review or anything, but it's worth a quick post. I knew it was going to be rough, but it's hard to compare thinking about it from what I'd heard with actually watching it. It's truly terrifying. At one point the main pastor says that she thinks the film will have liberals shaking in their boots. I guess I am, but I don't think it's in the way she thought I would be.

It was so hard to watch the children. They were so sweet and innocent, and I could just feel them having every bit of their childhood stripped away. Harry Potter is satanic. Ghost stories on a thunderous night aren't godly. Any trouble you have believing in god is an opportunity not for discussion and consideration, but for shame and public humiliation. The image of the little boy sobbing in front of the whole church because he felt it was hard for him to believe in a god you couldn't see was crushing.

I hope that people do see this movie. The main pastor equates her militant fundamentalist training the young with the violent fundamentalist training of 'the enemy.' The attitudes of many of the people in the documentary are dangerous to those of any (or no) faith.

The worst thing is that I hope they're completely wrong. I hope that they will fail utterly. I hope that they and extremists and fundamentalists are a freak minority. If my hopes come true, then those sweet innocent children will be in for a life of frustration, disappointment and failure. What a horrible thing.

Fox Paws

• When serving as a radio announcer and coming across the phrase "The Queen on England dined at the White house last evening," Please enunciate all of the 'n' sounds clearly. Otherwise, a listener who has just woken up might freak out.
• Ok, I realize it's getting hot here, but seriously, if the hem of your skirt only falls two inches below your belt, at least put a book or something in your lap when you sit down. It's not really cute. It's not really sexy. It's a little discomforting to all around.
  
• On the other hand, I'm sure everyone you met today would agree that the blue and white striped panties were a good call.
• Clothes that I think are okay to wear when answering the door for Chinese food delivery are not always suitable when I have to walk halfway across the complex to try and find the delivery guy.
• While the emotional victory of a good run does allow Chinese delivery, it does not balance the massive caloric weight of said Chinese food.
• When you are in the bathroom and you hear a clock alarm go off, and you think, "Hey that sounds like mine. I wonder who else around here has my alarm?" You really should go turn off your alarm.
  

Thank You Iceland

A Hillary Reference and a vodka commercial. That's good stuff. I never knew puffins were so frisky though.

I'll never get lost again

A map of the internet

Political Link Dump

• May 1st is only Labor Day everywhere but the US. Thanks to our intrepid leader, May 1st is "Loyalty Day" from now on.
• By the way, on Loyalty Day, Americans are encouraged to, "express their loyalty to the United States by flying the flag, participating in our democracy, and learning more about our country's grand story of courage and simple dream of dignity." Therefore I will participate in democracy by calling our president a twit.
• Bill Moyers interviews Jon Stewart.
  
• I really like Jon's take on the Gonzales fiasco. It seems incomprehensible to me that Gonzales is truly that incompetent or ignorant. He's just falling on his sword like a good little foot soldier. The longer he can draw heat and anger away from the president, the better for he's preformed. No wonder Bush has more confidence in him than ever before.
• Watch the interview with Josh Marshall too. There's some very wonkish stuff in there, but it may help in understanding the firings.
• 
  

Grease is the Word

So every Thursday is happy hour night at the local campus bar. Half price booze and half price deep-fried everything. Oh, and nachos.

But it's from 4-6. So, I always think I'm going to get work done afterward.

I'm funny like that.

And I'm not getting any work done tonight.

Ah, good times.

Best Typo Ever.

This is related to the sections before and after, but basically elf-sufficient in its argument.

Well, most of my arguments are rather founded on the mythical...

I'm glad I caught it before submitting it to this week's seminar group, but I've half a mind (I know) to keep it in there.

elf-sufficient. That's almost as good as significant otter.

Trappings of Wisdom

1. PhD dissertation for someone out there: How is it possible for headphone wires to get so impossibly tangled.

2. I like to think about what the ancient masters that I'm reading right now might think about me reading their deep words of wisdom while listening to Derek and the Dominoes. I like to think that this particular author I'm reading would be furious. Somehow it makes me smile.

Confidential to Dude in the Back Row

Ok, so the class I'm TAing for is a large one, and when I go to lectures I always try to sit inconspicuously in the back to see what the students do during lecture. You can probably figure it out. The ones up close are listening intently and scribbling notes. The students back by me? well... Here's a quick list

• In the annoying but not completely horrific category:
• Texting (xJust about everyone)
• In the distracting and annoying category:
• getting up and leaving out the loud doorway in the middle of lecture (x2)
  
• In the why don't you just stay home category:
• Solitaire on the laptop
• Soduku (x3 or 4)
• Sleeping
• In the Oh my god get a room! category:
• rubbing the upper inner thigh of the girl next to you. Constantly. For nearly the entire lecture. Yeesh. Who knew Gruub studies gets people so hot and bothered.
  

On another completely random note, in case you didn't know how, here's some excerpts from the book, On Becoming a Woman. It's filled with such useful information about how to avoid lesbian relationships, and the dangers of masturbation. Remember! Circumcision is always an option if you can find the right "Christian doctor." Brought to you by the loving care of 1951 misogyny.

• 
  

VT

I guess it's not surprising, but I've gotten very caught up in the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. I talked briefly before class about it, but many students hadn't even heard the news. Several didn't seem to be very impacted at all. I'm not sure how to take that. Maybe they'll deal with it later.

I am getting frustrated with so many people on tv saying that we as a society are programming violence into ourselves with our films, TV and video games. I have no evidence to support this, but it seems that, if anything, the people of the world now are more willing to not kill each other over their differences than in the past. What has changed is that we have more effective technology to carry out the violence that does exist. A small group of extremists can terrorize a global power. One man can destroy more life with a pair of guns than he could with a knife. The end result of this raging simply could not have been as horrific if he didn't have access to the pistols. I don't think effective gun control is possible or even practical in the US, at least in the foreseeable future, but I do hope this spurs debate leading into the election year.

That being said, it's naive to say that because one man can cause such damage that we as a society are inherently more violent. Movies and video games didn't give this man the idea to go out and kill people any more than watching Medea makes you want to kill your children or reading the bible makes you want to commit genocide. After investigation, we may discover that he played Grand Theft Auto, or watched 300 or Grindhouse. Many people will try to use this to push against these media. I hope they fail. I hope that we can see past such a simplistic argument, but I'm probably wrong.

To my friends and family, I'm not at Virginia Tech, but I'm ok, and I hope you are too.

M

This is post #1000

Woot.

On May 20, 2005, I started the blog with these immortal words:

So I'm grading papers again.

Ah, it seems like yesterday. Actually it seems like my life hasn't moved forward at all, because I've got a monster stack of grading sitting here waiting to be taken care of tonight.

In reality, many things of life-shaking import have happened to me in that time. I've broken up with a very long-term girlfriend. I've decided to attempt to get my PhD and eventually ended up here at USU's PhD program, but I imagine if you were to take anyone's span of nearly two years, you'd get pretty similar stuff. I'm not particularly unique or interesting, and thus my life is the perfect fodder for a blog. In fact, based on that criteria, I should probably start a webcast. Alas, I haven't been writing (or reading) blogs much lately, but I shall endeavor to correct these failings in the future.

So, that's all the navel-gazing I've got time for today. Thanks to all who drop by and double thanks to all who drop by and comment on my ramblings. In some sense, it's odd to be so pleased to get to know so many people who, for all I know, could be very advanced Eliza-bots. If you don't tell me, I'd be shattered. That's not true really. Regardless of who or what you are, I'm extremely happy to host you all here at my little niche of the intertubes.

A Big Drip

Funny thing. I wanted to try out some new things adding cayro syrup to my drip photography. I was going to try to get the syrup to try to add surface tension to the drippity drops to make longer stringy things, but in the end, I pretty much did what I did the last few times. The problems were the same too. It's the drip rig that's causing the most trouble. I'm using a soda bottle with a hole in the bottom. I've been adjusting the cap to change the speed of drips, but it usually ends up either on (too fast) or off (no drips). Feh. I guess I need to rebuild from the bottom up. Still. I got a whole poopload of shots. They just finished downloading, so I'll go see if any turned out ok. Check my flicker for updates if you're interested.

Plan Your Vacations Accordingly

Well, this raises more questions than it answers:

Orange dots = more single women than men
Blue dots = more single men than women

It says it's from the National Geographic Magazine, but I don't get that anymore, and I couldn't find it on their website, so I'm not completely convinced. However, I saw it on the internets, so it's got to be true, right?

So what's up with the man-heavy west coast eh? And what did the east coast do with all their guys? And for crying out loud, New England's at least got spots of blue over there, but the south looks like they got rid of all their men. Spooky I tells ya.

Down the Stream of Consciousness Without a Paddle

Randomness of my life:

• I picked the 'make me happy' class, and I'm really loving it. I'm naturally in over my head, but it's in a good way. I'm spending nearly the entire weekend on the material and having a great time. I hope I leave time for the rest of my other stuff
• I simply love Simon and Garfunkel. I think Paul Simon is perhaps my favoritest of all singer/songwriters. Absolutely the bee's knees. However. I stumbled onto the 2004 reunion concert album and... well... I'll be charitable and say they might have needed a little more rehearsal time... Like a lot more rehearsal time. And I know I'm biased, but it was mostly Art. Poor, poor Art.
  
• That being said, I would have loved to be there.
• Was that last point deserving of its own bullet?
• I'm getting really close to post #1000 on this here blog. I was going to try to think of a way to celebrate or something, but I've missed every other blogoversary-type milestone, so I figure I'll probably forget about this one, too.
• Seriously. I'm on 997 or something.
  
• I can't believe Molly Ringwald's parents forgot about her birthday.
• It's even more unbelievable that she ended up with that big dim hunk-dude.
• Then again, she was pretty messed up, too.
• I despise what CNN has become, but I flipped it on this morning really quickly to see that Rosie O'whatsherface thinks that there were explosives rigged in one of the WTC buildings.
  
• Dear lord.
• That's just awful on so many levels.
• level 1 - I understand that some people need coping mechanisms to deal with the idea that we live in a world that seems to be very random and very dangerous, but when did Rosie's nutjob conspiracy theories become news?
• level 2 - Is Rosie a structural engineer now? I think she should stay a comedienne. She's good at that.
  
• level 3 fighters only can have 30 hit points unless there's something special about 'em.
  
• Or at least they could the last time I played.
  
• That was more than ten years ago.
• Rosie the Riveter I might trust, but that Rosie, no thanks. And I used to like her.
• That was also about ten years ago.
• Actually, I still think she's funny.
  
• Did I mention that I was working really hard this entire weekend?
• Yeah, I think I did.
• I worry now that you don't believe me.
• Because I highly value your opinions about me.
• Oh, you anonymous denizens of the intertubes, don't think me a liar.
  
• Even though I am.
  
• I like how my tags are completely useless and run miles and miles down the side of the blog. That makes me smile.
• What are the odds of my getting more "Molly Ringwald" posts?
  
• Ok, I think I've abused the good graces of the bullet point format as much as possible.
• And I need to get back to work.
• Did you actually read all of this?
• Tagging this is going to be fun
• You're procrastinating, too, aren't you?
• Get back to work.
  

Deconstructing Deconstruction

Link Dump (ok, only two, but still):

• Just got this from a friend. I present to you "How To Deconstruct Anything"
• The best flash game if you have a Wacom tablet. Also known as the most frustrating flash game if you don't have a Wacom tablet.
  

Also, the History Channel is showing Planet of the Apes.

The History Channel.

To Your Left, In His Natural Habitat, An Overread...

Spring is arriving and with it the campus tours. I really enjoy watching these pass by when I can. I especially love watching the students. Some are trying to be oh, so over it all and oozing with disdain simply because they must be seen with the rents, but some you can actually see are really excited about maybe coming here. They're pointing out cool campus parts and even listening to the tour guides.

Ah the tour guides. It's like the Disneyland Safari tour without the funny.

Master of the backward walk:

"Here is the X Library, it's one of the real libraries here on campus. It's also known as the grad library because it's where all the grad students go. It's actually quiet in there for when you need to really study."

(overheard by me giggling about how I just got a book from a 'real' library.)

Behind Door #1?

So there are two classes.

Neither are directly related to what I'm all about here. One class is in a hot related field that might look really nice on a resume. If I could teach a class about it, it might be a nice selling point when I go job hunting, see?

The other class is a more hard-core old-school class that might not look nearly as sexy to a hiring committee.

I've sat in once on each class, and although I would like to take both, I know I can't take both because of the work load and other things I'm doing now. (Aside: why do all the classes come up at the exact same time?) It's not that I don't like Class #1 - I do, but I really like Class #2 much better. It's delving into some of the stuff that originally got me excited about my field in the first place at a level I've never really been able to work on. Well, actually, I've pretty much decided that I'm going to attend it simply based on me liking the class (and the prof and the others in the class).

Now, I know in my brain that I should be ok with that. In fact I could celebrate the idea that I'm looking for my own happiness within my options and not slaving myself to what I think others might want of me.

But.

I do have a little bit of nagging nagging at the back of my head. It's telling me that there are no jobs out there and if I don't want to be waiting tables at Denny's, I'd better get the academic boob job by taking all the hot classes so I can tell schools that I can teach all the cool classes.

I just don't think I want to be sexy like that.

Purple Haze

I stole the lightbox info from here and the photographing smoke info from here

Here's my ligthbox setup for smoke:

I've got a desk lamp and a slaved flash on the outside and a stick of vanilla incense with a black foam board background on the inside. People my not believe me, but I'm certain that the flavor matters :)

I think there are a couple of changes that I need to make though

- I really need much better light. the flash on the right is ok, but the lamp is pathetic. Stronger light would really help the smoke stand out more and would let my play around more with settings on the camera - especially faster shutter speeds

- I think I probably should have cut up the box lengthwise. The thing is that I'm getting a little more of the background in focus than I'd like. Part of that is because I'm not using a light sucking black fabric or something, but I think more length would really take the background way out of my focus area.Maybe I can bring the incense out a little further...

Ok, so I shot a couple quick ones so we could play with the photoshop side of this thing. The smoke is so finicky, and it moves so fast that I usually take a lot of shots to get one or two that have a couple of interesting parts. Click your lens onto manual focus and move the lens around to find the eddies. Don't worry too much if it seems you're getting a lot out of focus.

Here's a I got shot out right off the card:

Interesting but we can do better. I'll bring it into photoshop and crop it up to isolate the lower right hand corner.

The most fun is fixing the levels (Ctrl-L)

First click on the little eyedropper with black ink. That'll tell photoshop that you are going to select what you want to be the blackest of the black in your image. I would chose the little section marked 2 in the image. Then click the eyedropper with white ink and select the part of your image that you want to be the whitest of white - I picked the part marked #3, but it would probably be better to choose the part under "Click" in the photo up there. Play around with this a lot and you'll get a lot of fun possibilities.

That'll give you something like this image which has a nice black background (although I'd like it a little more black in the upper right), and a really fun near-oversaturation in the curls down on the lower right :


Which is fun, but we can make it more fun. I accidentally shot this with an ISO of 400, so it's noisy. I'll do a little smart blur to even it out a bit.

The color is easy. Just go to the color balance (Ctrl-B) and fiddle with the bars until you dig it. I thought the green worked well



The other thing you can do is color invert the image (Ctrl-I) before (or after) you fiddle with the color balance. That gave me a fun purple


Then you save it and pop it up on flickr and your 365 blog and it's your daily photo and a how-to walkthrough!

Like I said, I'm still not happy with a lot of the process and I think this can be made a lot better. So give it a shot and tell me how you make your smoke cool!

Rhymes With Orange

Ok, I stole the lightbox how-to from here, but here's the rest:

backlit orange

Step 1:

Cut a hole in the box.
(har har har)

Honestly, I cut three holes in the box, put paper towels over the holes to diffuse the light I'll be adding. For the backlighting, I hung another sheet of paper towel on the inside of the back of the box. All I did then was aim all the lights at the background so the light would bounce and hit the back of the clementine.









I carved up the thing so there was a slice sticking up, but it would still stand up.


















I took a really quick shot with my non-macro lens and this is what it ended up looking like. It's blurry and it ain't nearly as good as the earlier one, but you get the idea. My clementines are starting to get a little ragged too. I think I need to finish 'em off.


Next post will be the smoke walkthrough