CharmingGeek.net Funness

I woke up this morning feeling like I deserved the previous 9 hours of sleep. Or, well at least 7 of it, but that’s still way above average. After a mostly successful home-made dinner last night, I went for a run, purely for fun. Instead of running the usual course down King Street to the waterfront, I decided to be a bit more impulsive. Thus I ran a zig-zag course over to Duke Street, through some archway that lead to a rather boring through-street, past the train station (Alexandria’s Union Station, to be precise) and up the 138 steps to the GW Masonic Memorial. For those of you who haven’t run up 138 steps lately, that’s a lot of steps. For those of you who have, just let me have my moment. Well, the view from up there is great. It was well into the night, so I could make out all the major features of the outlying area based on the pattern of lights. To the left I could clearly see the Capital Dome and the Washington Monument through the branches of a rather tall tree. Some 8 months now, I’ve lived within view of that memorial and that was the first time I’ve actually been there. Anyhow, I did my site-seeing last weekend, so it was back down 138 steps, this time through Union Station, and into Old Town.
Running down King Street at night when I can just dodge traffic is much better than running it during the day when I have to stop and wait for the light at every corner. I still really like running that street because there are always so many people walking it and there’s so much to look at. In fairness, though, the fumes from the many busses and the scents from a plethora of restaurants, cafes and bars can make it difficult to fill my lungs at regular intervals. Eventually I made it to the Starbucks at the end of the street with the Potomac River right in front of me. You know in Forest Gump when Forest has been running for a couple years and he just decides to stop, then everybody following him is all “Well, what do we do now?” I had very much that feeling. I figured the only logical thing to do was to turn my polyester and spandex clad figure around and run back home, after another jaunt up those 138 steps of course. I’m afraid this is a long and boring story now.
Well, I also finished a book yesterday, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A rather amusing attempt at literature, I’d say. I was almost but not quite entirely unsurprised to find that there were a lot of unnecessary words at the end of the book which I didn’t bother reading. The end result being that I can now pass the book onto Heather as I get on to San Diego for a week or so.
I’m going to go get a haircut now.

“Marines preparing for combat … have lost significant amounts of training time because undocumented immigrants from Mexico have constantly wandered onto a bombing test range in Arizona…”

South Korea is considering using armed robots to guard their border with North Korea. In Japan, a robotic human exoskeleton has been developed to give the wearer super-strength. Sony has patented a technology that uses a “pulsed utrasonic signal” to alter “the neural timing in the cortex.” That is, an invention that uses electronic means to beam sights, sounds, tastes, smells etc. directly into your brain.
My first impression is “Hey, this is pretty neat.” But then this all seems very reminiscent of the Terminator movies. I write computer software for a living, so I know how likely anything run by a computer is to malfunction. I wouldn’t like something like that strapped to my leg or pointing a gun at me.

Why haven’t I heard about this before? One of the front runners for student body president (44% of the vote) at NC State University is named The Pirate Captain. You can read about his scurvy crew and his campaign plank on the official campaign site.
If you want more details, read this article from the Technician, NC State’s student newspaper. Man, that’s fun.
I like what WRAL had to say about this.

This weather is beautiful. It makes me really hate having to go to work. I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t hardly had a chance to step outside. I think that early spring is my least favorite time of year. It’s such a tease. Winter’s over, and it’s really not cold anymore. Then there’s so much expectation, but it’s still not warm enough to have all kinds of raucous fun outside. At least this week it is warm enough for raucous fun. I just have to be inside. I think it’s going to be cold again next week. But it’s not long before summer will be here. Soon enough I’ll be able to wear tank tops and jean shorts everywhere I go.

First watch this trailer. Then visit the Hitchhiker’s Guide to teh Galaxy website. This is where you’ll be on April 29th.

I figure it’s time I leave a proverbial message in a bottle for the Internet world. My computer is mostly functional now. It certainly sounds better. I still have to turn it on, then off, back on, and then press F2 to get it to boot, but I’m getting that fixed next week. I’ve got my new super huge hard drive that doesn’t sound like a food processor. I put a switch on the front so I can those shiny blue lights on and off. I also replaced a couple of the fans for better cooling and less vibration. (Ooops. I forgot to screw the CD drives back in.)
I’m so excited that summer is coming around the corner. I’ve got my windows open and am really enjoying going around barefoot.

Well, it’s Thursday, and you have to go to work. Or maybe you don’t. Either way, why don’t you entertain your self and abuse my bandwidth by downloading some videos?

If I ever lose faith in the internet again, remind me of Bud Light’s Real Men of Genius.

It has come to my attention that some of you may care neither about ultra-energetic cosmic rays nor tetraneutrons. For you, I have some flash animation; pretty things you can click on.
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