December 27, 2008
December 19, 2008
December 18, 2008
I'm honestly not sure if anyone still checks this (other that me, and, obviously, Jeff, who is the lone remaining contributor), but I saw this and immediately thought of high school:
Seriously. Real Headline. Here is the story.
Reminds me of a joke I heard in high school. Anyone?
And apologies to Jeff.... if, indeed, you are the only one still reading this, you probably won't understand since I am alluding to a quasi-inside joke.
December 14, 2008
The More Facebook Friends You Have...
A recent study of college freshmen showed those with 200 or more Facebook friends scored lower self-esteem than those with less than 200 Facebook friends.
Link to the study is here.
The reasoning behind it is those with 200 friends are likely not to go out and stress about real-life friends.
December 10, 2008
September 21, 2008
In the Middle
Just in case you hadn't heard. High is now Middle.
But you can still see "High School" on the sign....
August 28, 2008
August 12, 2008
July 3, 2008
How to Photograph Fireworks
I wrote this for another website. Your mileage may vary:
Many a budding shutterbug has attempted unsuccessfully to photograph fireworks by merely pointing their film camera to the sky and shooting, resulting dark useless prints.
With the advent of digital photography, photographing fireworks has become easy, just by following some basic steps:
- Find a location away from the crowd and power lines. An elevated location on a hillside or on the back of a pickup truck might be adequate. You might even want to scout out your perch beforehand.
- Set your camera to use standard quality pics. Having too high quality settings will result in too long of write speed, thereby making you miss shots.
- Set the shutter speed to 1 second or longer.
- Use a tripod. If you can't find a tripod use a nice steady base.
- Turn off the flash. This might seem like common sense. Remember you are photographing lights. Any light projected onto another light will merely take away from the light you are trying to photograph.
- Point your camera toward the sky and shoot. A key to getting a good shot is anticipating when the firework will explode. Initially You will have many hit and miss shots. As the show goes along, you will be able to perfect your timing thereby getting excellent shots. Being able to review the shots afterwards and delete the poor quality shots is satisfaction enough, rather than using up a great amount of film with a film camera.
July 1, 2008
one-way tickets
Here's our address for the next...at least 3 months.
Write sweetly and often?
We love and miss you guys, especially you ones we're used to seeing around.
Let's hook up for an alternative 10 year reunion or something...your thoughts?
Josh & Jesse Hunter, PCTs
c/o Country Director
Howard Anderson
Peace Corps
8 Worthington Avenue
Kingston 5
Jamaica, West Indies
May 29, 2008
I Have Schizophrenia
Well, actually I don't have schizophrenia, but these people do. A surprisingly good episode from MTV's True Life.
Some thoughts -
Josh doesn't want help. His mother is pretty much fed up with him and wants him voluntarily committed. He will probably end up on the street.
I'm not even sure that Amber has schizophrenia at all. She seems just depressed and very unsure of herself. She's afraid to take a speech class, but has the ability to broadcast her life on MTV?
I felt the most sympathy for Ben. Many many people get as depressed as him. His father's and grandfather's illness doesn't help his mental state. However he has a supportive family, so hopefully everything will work out for him.
May 25, 2008
May 16, 2008
May 15, 2008
Bill O'Reilly... THE DANCE REMIX!
this is a dance remix that inside edition footage of him flipping out. i laughed.
May 14, 2008
A Little Political Humor
Presenting Things Younger Than John McCain.
And then there's this little gem:
May 7, 2008
Great Nightmare Material
Ok, so at first, I thought this was a little bit cool. But the longer I watched it, the more creeped out and uncomfortable I felt. The music really highlights that feeling, so if possible, watch with speakers on.
April 29, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV, anyone?
So GTA IV is coming out today... I pre-ordered mine from BestBuy some time ago. It probably won't arrive for a couple more days,. Its ok though, I am pretty busy during the week.
From what I've read, the game is incredible. I have seen multiple critics give it a 10/10 (which I have never seen before). It is supposed to have some cool multiplayer, so maybe those of us who have a PS3 can get together for some destructive meyham.
April 28, 2008
CNN Headline T-Shirts!
CNN appears to have added a new feature on their website- you can click a little t-shirt next to a headline and order your very own t-shirt displaying the headline....
Here's an example (not making this up- this is a real CNN headline)
Any idea who exactly these t-shirts are being marketed to?
of the c/o 2000 authors listed on the right, the following people are not yet on facebook:
C Bryan, Pappert. that is all.
come on guys... if you don't want to get on there for YOU, that's fine... but why don't you get on there for the rest of us? We've got a lot of pictures and stuff we'd love to share with you... the point is, it's a SOCIAL network and as much as you guys like to try and find reasons not to like it, you've got to appreciate the fact that over 50 million people are using it- there's got to be SOME reason that it's so popular-
I would re-vouch for why I find it very useful for keeping up with friends and acquaintances, but I think I've already done that and it didn't work the first time... suffice to say that the technology has kept up with the times- it makes myspace look extremely outdated when you compare the two-- you can actually put in your AOL screen name, or email address and it'll tell you all the people you know who are members and stuff... once you make a few friends it even makes suggestions about people it thinks you probably know...
why don't the two of you at least just MAKE an account and check out all our pictures and stuff- you don't have to maintain it if after a reasonable trial of 3 or 4 days you still find it to be useless... that's my challenge... jerks
seriously- can someone else on here who uses facebook back me up?
April 14, 2008
Tetris...the movie?
So far, the conversion of videogames to film has not been a flattering process to the source material. Hope for anything more than mediocrity and you'll be very disappointed. I feel that one of the main reasons for this is poor choice of games to adapt. When you have plenty of fairly story rich games floating around, how is it that studios land on fighting games 75% of the time? But, Tetris? Seriously? That's like making Pong: The Movie. Initially I had trouble believing that this wasn't a joke, but I think it might be legitimate. Click on the link in the title and watch the trailer. They must be going for the campy vibe, right?
April 13, 2008
Simple Man
My new favorite old song...
Listen to the lyrics.
Some other notes of interest. Even though the lyrics tell of a mother giving advice to her "only son," author Ronnie Van Zant was one of 3 brothers.
April 11, 2008
I... I don't have an email.... What's this????
This commercial is old in so many ways...... licking a stamp... hah!
April 4, 2008
March 25, 2008
March 18, 2008
March 15, 2008
March 12, 2008
March 10, 2008
Mt. Juliet High School
Ok, so this blog is at least theoretically organized around the fact that we all went to Mt. Juliet High School. Has anyone looked at their faculty lately? I went to the website to see what I could find. It is safe to say that a very large percentage of the faculty has been replaced since we were there. The biggest surprise to me is that Ms. Sharpe is an assistant principal. C'mon. This is the woman who used to apologize to use when she yelled at us after we got out of control. Seriously? Ms. Sharpe dealing with hooligans? I can't see it.
The only other interesting thing I noticed is that Mr. B. is still teaching (thought he would've gotten the axe by now) and his daughter Rebecca is teaching Criminal Justice there too. I don't think there was anything else remarkable.
Thoughts?
March 9, 2008
Graduation stuff
So.... I'll be joining the ranks of the "real world" here shortly. My graduation from pharmacy school will be on Friday May 30th at 1:30 pm at the downtown FedEx forum (where the grizzlies and Memphis tigers play)-
I understand not many if any of you would be able to take off that Friday and make the 3.5 hour trip- (but there's certainly more than enough room for any of you that would like to come)- so I was thinking of maybe having a post-graduation get-together on Saturday and/or Sunday afternoon (or night?) at the Burka house in Mt. Juliet (not unlike Bryan's last year). Here's the deal- I say "and/or" because there will be a general get-together welcome to anybody on Sunday- but I suspect around 20-30 plus of the people in attendance then will be people I know from Church not including all 4 of my grandparents, immediate family, and any other family that might be there.... so because of that- I think if there were 6-8+ of us that were interested it might warrant having more of just a hang-out friend time (pizza, movies, games- you know the drill), low-key kinda thing that Saturday night with just us... if there's not many who would be up for that on Saturday, we'll just combine it on Sunday and you'd of course be welcome for that as well. I just think the Saturday night thing might afford us more freedom to sit around and talk like old times without me feeling like I have to walk around and thank everybody for coming like I will on Sunday.
Can I get a head-count of who might be interested?
March 7, 2008
March 3, 2008
Coolest Board Game... Ever
On Saturday night, Oksana and I went to a friend's house for dinner and hanging out. We played a board game that I had never heard of. Long story short, it was quite possibly the best and most fun board game I have ever played.
The game is called Settlers of Catan. Apparently, it isn't commonly sold in toy stores. Instead, it is stocked in role playing game stores. Its not a role playing game, though. It looks very complicated, but it is quite simple once you get the basics down. It is sort of like a cross between monopoly and risk. Essentially, 3-6 players are settling an island. The object is to get 10 points by 1) creating new settlements, 2) upgrading settlements to cities and/or 3) getting points from "development cards" which are sort of like community chest cards.
Here's why I think this game is great:
- It is easy to learn. I know it looks and sounds complicated, but it really isn't, I swear. A five minute tutorial is enough to get going.
- One of the biggest elements of the game is the element that makes games fun- personal interaction. The game is built to encourage making deals and alliances.
- Nobody is out before the end of the game. Nothing sucks more than taking a dive in monopoly and watching the game finish for a few hours.
- It combines chance and skill. Dice rolling means success relies upon chance. But there are multiple strategies and approaches that can pay off.
- It is hard to dominate. There doesn't seem to be a particularly dominant approach to the game. Nay, even Billy couldn't dominate it.... but I may be wrong (everyone knows ever since Billy was bitten by a radioactive and/or genetically enhanced Monopoly dog, he has exhibited superpowers in board gaming).
If those aren't convincing enough, maybe this is.... Oksana likes this game. Any of you who know Oksana reasonably well probably know she really isn't into board games. She was genuinely engaged in this game and she actually won the first game (we played two even though it is a 1-2 hour game... we stayed until past 1 am to finish).
If I weren't so bloody far away, I would buy this gem and hold it until I can introduce you in person. But since I won't be in town for a while, I thought I would give you guys a chance to try it out and let me know what you think.
March 1, 2008
February 27, 2008
Mario
The People's Mario looks like a Soviet era propaganda film.
Then there's this....if Super Mario Bros. had been put out by Atari...
February 8, 2008
February 4, 2008
LOST baby item
I saw this somewhere and thought it was too clever not to share. It is available for various baby items.
January 31, 2008
January 22, 2008
Letterman
Watch this video. As Biff (the guy standing with the audience holding the mic) is talking to the first guy in the audience, look just above Biff's head.
http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/video_player/index/php/942590.phtml
January 15, 2008
January 12, 2008
January 2, 2008
Led Zepplin to headline Bonnaroo
Josh, Jesse, and Todd, this one is for you:
Led Zepplin to headline Bonnaroo.
January 1, 2008
New LOST Season Trailer
DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU ARE NOT CAUGHT UP THROUGH THE END OF SEASON 3. Don't say I didn't warn you.