If the Fing-Longer and What-If-Machine existed and you asked the question posed in the title of this entry, then you would get the following YouTube video:
The first 10 minutes or so plus the battle with Leviathan are inspired pieces of work. The last 30 minutes or so, not as much. However, if you've ever played a Final Fantasy game and thought how ridiculous some of the characters, NPCs, puzzles, quests, random events, and cut scenes were then you owe it to yourself to watch this.
I've finally gotten around to posting photos from my December trip to Vietnam. I'd write more here but the captions in the photos tell a pretty complete story.
What to do when you've been lured out of hibernation by Futurama quotes? It's spring 2007 random thoughts and links time!
Oh, George Takei.
The worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) student metaphors used in English papers.
My favorites:
"He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it."
"She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef."
"Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut."
"The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant."
"He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up."
One of these days, I'll post a list of selected writing samples that I've encountered in my teaching career. Here's a teaser: "If technology were like chocolate, I would choose Godiva's brand because it is so rich. Our district needs to increase its technology richness."
Just when you thought the Trek franchise had died a nice uneventful death. Matt Damon as Captain Kirk? I'm troubled ...
How Not to Promote a Restaurant or The Japanese Have Too Much Time on Their Hands.
Cheering for Roger Federer is a lot like cheering for the sun to come up the next day.
As this, this, this, and this show, the history of Windows Vista might very well be one of hackers staying one step ahead of Microsoft and their Windows Genuine Advantage. I was going to post a lengthy review of my Vista experience a few months ago but realized that this is all I need to print: Vista stinks out loud. No support for SQL server, minimal driver support, eyecandy gone wild, a huge footprint, and annoying messages popping up every minute asking me ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS??? made me rue the day I ever installed it on my laptop. Thankfully, the "upgrade" to XP went smoothly and now I can run SPSS and Vegas Video again. I know that most computer users are stupid, download all e-mail attachments and run them, but seriously: does my OS really need to warn me every time I'm running an executable that it doesn't deem safe (i.e. every single executable not signed off by Microsoft)?
I'm not a fan of the new "ribbon" interface in the new MS-Office either. Reviews have stated that after 12 hours of use you'll get used to the new interface and never look back. Honestly, though, I don't have 12 hours to waste trying to memorize where Microsoft decided to stick once easily accessible functions like Create an Envelope or how to get my old templates back. The references database looked like it would be a winner but after using it for a few minutes it made EndNote look like a star. It seems to want to permanently change your references font to Cabiri and if you remove an in-text citation it doesn't automatically remove it from the works cited page. I couldn't find out how to copy and paste references from one document to another easily either. It could be that I'm just getting to Technology Fogey age where I don't want to try anything new. More likely, it's just Microsoft thinking that they're introducing a whole lot of new features when in reality they just moved everything to another spot so users can justify shelling out money for the newest versions of Windows and Office. Honestly, I think MS-Office hit its high point with Word 6.0. Since then the only new feature they've introduced that I've used is the underline misspelled words in red feature.
As an Asian I must say that I hate dumb Asian people. Oliver is right: a thoughtful dialogue about race is long overdue but using a crazy person like Kenneth Eng as a jumping off point is a bad idea. Thankfully, we have responsible publications like The Asian Reporter to tell us about ground breaking Asian news such as this:
Woman crashes while teaching dog to drive
BEIJING (AP) -- You can't teach an old dog new tricks -- like driving. A
woman in Hohhot, the capital of north China's Inner Mongolia region,
crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson, the official
Xinhua News Agency said. No injuries were reported, although the
vehicles involved were slightly damaged, it said. The woman,
identified only by her surname, Li, said her dog "was fond of
crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive,"
according to Xinhua. "She thought she would let the dog 'have a try'
while she operated the accelerator and brake," the report said. "They
did not make it far before crashing into an oncoming car." Xinhua did
not say what kind of dog or vehicles were involved, but Li paid for
repairs.
