People have been “beatboxing” for a long time now. It’s become mainstream enough that Blake Lewis, the runner-up this year on American Idol, used it a little in some of his performances.
Greg Pattillo has done some recordings of himself doing a more standard beatbox thing while playing his flute. All of these videos are just him, his flute, and a microphone. Pretty cool!
Did you ever want to know what REALLY makes your mouse move? A company in Japan has greatly magnified the whole process, so you can peer down into the screen and see what’s really making your mouse move. Just visit THIS PAGE and move your mouse around the circle in the center of the page. You’ll get an up-close look at what’s really going on.
So it looks like Pirates of the Caribbean is getting into the MMORPG racket. It’s called Pirates of the Caribbean Online and after I read about how it was going to work, my first question was, “Will I have to pay for this or will there be a free version?” Turns out they’re expected to have an “Advanced Player” subscription of $9.95 a month but the basic version is supposed to be free. FREE! I read that the only difference between the two versions is going to be ads. And since I use Firefox, I can easily block the ads and just play the game! WOOHOO!!
(These pictures are screenshots from the game. Click them to view tons more screenshots.)
There’s already a nicely detailed article on Wikipedia about the game, which I’ve read is supposed to launch on June 1. I’ve been playing Tribal Wars for a couple of months now and have started to get bored with it. I’ve already dropped most of the accounts I had the various Tribal Wars worlds (there are 7 now) and am down to just one or two that I still maintain and check on daily. Still, a pirate MMORPG would be awesome! There are a couple out there now, but they’re not very impressive. THIS one sounds like it will be.
Here are some key elements of this game:
You create your own customized pirate character and battle other pirates and go on piratey quests.
When you’re on a ship, it’s not just you running the ship. It’s an actual crew, with someone in charge and giving orders and the rest carrying them out. It’s going to be a “friendly community” setting where people can interact with each other rather than everyone on their own individual ships.
You can interact with many of the characters from the movies.
There will be player guilds and a “virtual economy,” so you can acquire gold and buy and sell things. Buried treasures are, of course, part of the game, and you can trade the gems and artifacts in this open-market-style economy.
There will a variety of ships to choose from, which you can buy or even take over from other pirates.
The combat system is supposed to be quite “robust,” with levels of weaponry that you have to earn to “unlock” and make available.
You can join crews (for quick battles) or guilds (for long term strategic play).
Your character can build up notoriety by mastering skills, winning battles, hunting for treasure, and even by playing poker, blackjack, and darts with other pirates in the taverns.
All in all, this sounds like the best of Puzzle Pirates, 3-D interactive gaming, and MMORPGs, all immersed in the Pirates of the Caribbean setting. How fun is THAT??
Despite what some of the reviews have said, I LOVED THIS MOVIE! I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on Saturday morning (the day after opening) for $4. It was DEFINITELY worth it. This third movie of the series was almost three hours long, but wrapped up the story very nicely, while still leaving room for more if desired. There were a few really good fighting scenes, both melee and sea battles. I found the overall story progression better than Dead Man’s Chest. Plus, seeing Chow Yun Fat as a pirate was terrific! They added some new elements and characters to the story and a couple interesting twists that actually pulled together some loose ends that had developed over the last two movies. And of course the makeup, costumes, and special effects were simply outstanding. No movie is complete without great actors, and this movie really delivered that as well. Johnny Depp is as excellent an actor as ever, and very thorough and funny even in the little details and facial expressions.
And just like the other two movies, there were plenty of quotable lines:
Lord Cutler Beckett: [Jack has a cannon aimed at Beckett] You’re mad!
Jack Sparrow: [grins] Thank goodness for that because if I wasn’t, this’d probably never work.
Barbossa: [at a pirate gathering] There’s not been a gathering like this in our lifetime.
Jack Sparrow: And I owe them all money.
Jack Sparrow: [Flies from one ship to another and lands on deck] And that was without a single drop of rum!
Jack Sparrow: Will you tell me something? Have you come because you need my help to save a certain distressing damsel? Er… rather damsel in distress? Either one.
Elizabeth Swann: [watching a huge fight among the pirates] This is madness!
Jack Sparrow: This is politics!
Jack Sparrow: Shoot him and cut out his tongue. Then shoot his tongue!
Jack Sparrow: Yes I lied to you. No, I don’t love you. Of course it makes you look fat. I’ve never been to Brussels. It is pronounced ‘eh-GREE-jous’. By the way, no, I have never actually met Pizzaro, but I love his pies.
And then there was the whole thing between Capt. Jack Sparrow and Barbossa and their telescopes. Very funny!
It’s a must-see on the big screen, so don’t wait for the DVD. Go to a matinee this summer and pay less and fight smaller crowds to see this. That said, I can’t WAIT for the DVD to come out. Looks like that won’t happen until December.
Nowadays, a truly great movie has to have everything: action, romance, deep themes, great special effects, great makeup, a compelling story, and comedy. Yes, comedy, even when the movie’s not really a comedy at all. Funny lines and bit add greatly to the enjoyment of the movie. PotC: At World’s End was all of that!
So now that I’ve cut down all the vines that were killing the tree in our front yard, the tree looks really nice and is now a good climbing tree. The boys are up there quite frequently. I took a rope and put some knots in it and tied it to one of the branches so that it hung down against the trunk to help them climb up to the lower branches. It still can be kind of hard, so I took the rest of that rope (which was longer) and tied some loops along it so there were places to put hands or feet while climbing.
It’s not very easy to tie loops in a rope and have them stay when you pull on the ends. So I googled for loops and knots and found this:
It’s called a Butterfly Knot (or a Lineman’s Loop). It’s pretty firm and holds well even when the ends are pulled. What’s really cool about it is that you can do it even with both ends of the rope connected to something (as you can see by the pictures).
So there you go. A solid loop knot that can hold weight and is easy to tie. Now you know.
Last week the price of gas in Indianapolis jumped 30 cents overnight. Then this last Monday it did it AGAIN! To a whopping $3.59 a gallon for regular unleaded! Last night it actually came down a little and is averaging $3.48 around town, but STILL!
It’s not like we’re normally an expensive city to buy gas. Whenever they discuss gas prices around the country, we’re usually below the average. But not THIS week!
A gas station near me must have felt some shame about the whole thing. Their sign didn’t say 359 or 349. It had the three parts of the 8 that they have in common: the top left upright, the middle cross, and the bottom right upright. So you couldn’t tell whether it was a 4 or a 5. It was still a 5, but you couldn’t tell from the sign. And I KNOW it wasn’t an accident because the sign isn’t the type that has parts blow off and BOTH SIDES of the sign had the same problem!
What really gets me is that this weekend is Memorial Day, when many people will be traveling and when the INDIANAPOLIS 500 happens! Thousands of extra people visiting the city and the gas prices go up to quite a bit higher than the average around the country. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
We’ll know for sure in a few days. If the price goes back to normal (compared with national averages) next Tuesday or so, we’ll know they were jacking it up to gouge the customers and race fans. I’ll post something when that day comes.
Back in October I blogged about flying your name to Mars. Well, I just got an email last night saying that the silica glass mini-DVD has been mounted in the Phoenix spacecraft, which has just been flown to Cape Canaveral, where it will begin final testing and preparation for launch.
Besides collecting names for the disc, they’ve also got “Visions of Mars” on there, which is a collection of art and literature written about the planet Mars.
The names and Visions of Mars were written to the silica mini-DVD by the company Plasmon OMS using a special technique. The resulting archival disk should last at least hundreds of years on the Martian surface, ready to be picked up by future explorers.
After the disc was written, a special label was applied to the disc to identify it for future explorers. Then, the whole assembly was “baked out” (to kill microbes and also to reduce future outgassing of the materials), and Lockheed Martin in Colorado installed it onto the spacecraft.
So you could say that this disc represents the first library on Mars! That’s VERY cool!
We all know that lemmings migrate every so often and end up jumping into the oceans to drown in large groups, right? Turns out that’s a myth. An urban legend. Snopes.com tells us that while Disney was filming White Wilderness back in 1958, “the film crew induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior.” Click the link to find out more about the filming of these lemmings. Turns out it wasn’t even a migration. They only had a small amount of lemmings that they filmed “deceptively” in order to make it appear like huge herds.
The trivia section for this film in the Internet Movie Database says: “This picture was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings. They were imported from Manitoba for use in the film, and were purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various angles to produce a “migration” sequence; afterwords, the helpless creatures were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded into the water. The entire sequence was faked using a handful of lemmings deceptively photographed to create the illusion of a large herd of migrating creatures.”
For those of you haven’t heard about this, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a parody religion founded by Bobby Henderson who was reacting against science curriculum standards being proposed by the Kansas Board of Education a couple years ago. Here is an excerpt from a letter he wrote:
Open Letter To Kansas School Board
I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
Adherents call themselves Pastafarians and I get the impression that most of them are simply using this a way of mocking those who believe in Intelligent Design. From the comments on their site, it seems many Pastafarians view all religions as superstitions made up by groups within societies to fill some emotional need that their intellects weren’t advanced enough to deal with.
Many ID-ers certainly have gotten upset by FSMism and communicated that. It’s kinda sad how many Christians have taken them seriously and tried to disprove it or argue about it. It was started by someone with a sense of humor and a disbelief in Intelligent Design. People who are reacting against FSMism should realize that and treat the issue a little more lightly.
Oh, and to further show the sense of humor behind this, it’s only permitted to worship and teach about the Flying Spaghetti Monster while wearing full Pirate regalia.
In my mind, it’s a way to play at religion and do/say “religiony” things without being committed to a serious system of beliefs. Does that show a deep need for people to believe in a higher power even when their brains are telling them it’s all made up? That’s a topic for another day.
This third movie of the series was almost three hours long, but wrapped up the story very nicely, while still leaving room for more if desired. There were a few really good fighting scenes, both melee and sea battles. I found the overall story progression better than Dead Man’s Chest. Plus, seeing 
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