I don’t normally post about anime on this blog, which is weird because I used to be a big fan of the genre. Anyway, in honor of anime otaku cult culture, I have to announce that today is a big day for the recently rapidly rising haruhiism movement. The Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu ED Special Version has been leaked on YouTube two days ahead of its official DVD release. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you are not “one of us.” ;)
My coworker holds the opinion that baseball is not a sport. He calls it a game. According to him, any activity where overweight, unfit people can be superstars (i.e. Babe Ruth), or where people can play back-to-back games without breaking a sweat (i.e. doubleheaders), does not qualify to be called a sport. I found this an interesting point of view, as baseball is one of America’s most traditional and favorite pastime “sports,” and if you ask any average person on the street if they consider baseball a sport, they’d probably say, “of course!” On the other hand, if you asked about, say, golf for example, you’d probably get more people agreeing that it’s more of a game than a sport.
So I decided to look up the number of calories burned playing baseball compared to playing golf. The numbers vary slightly depending on your source of information, but overall all sources I’ve seen agree that golf burns more calories per hour than baseball. As for skill involved, it’s easy to argue that golf requires as much skill as, if not more than, baseball. So, no offense to any baseball players out there, but even though I enjoy watching Chien Ming Wang pitch for the Yankees, I have to agree with my coworker: baseball is not a sport, it’s a game.
In part three of my series, “Technical Notes that Will Most Likely Be of No Interest to Anyone Except Myself,” I discuss how to connect a Gateway Solo 2500 laptop (a ten year old Celeron 333 with no hard drive or ethernet port) to a server running CentOS through a serial interface. Try to contain your excitement. (Read on …)
Or rather, a woman has died from participating in a contest to win a Wii. A Sacramento, California radio station, KDND 107.9, decided to hold a contest where the person who could drink the most water without going to the bathroom would win a Nintendo Wii. The contest was aptly dubbed, “Hold Your Wee for a Wii.” In the end, one of the contestants died from “water intoxication” while trying to win a Wii for her three kids.
Despite how much I dislike Apple’s marketing, most of their products, and hybrid pda phones in general, it looks like I’ll be quite tempted to get one of the new iPhones later in June this year. That is, as long as there are no battery problems running a full blown OS with a 3.5 inch touchscreen, and the device doesn’t try to force me to use Apple’s lame DRM-crippled-iTunes service. (Sure, it’s easy to work around or hack DRM, but it’s also a waste of time.) Otherwise, the iPhone’s features, size, and look are all very appealing.
Update: I hear the iPhone is not going to be 3G, and if the rumors about the iPhone exclusively running proprietary Apple software turn out to be true, then this will be one gadget I’ll definitely not be getting.
Update2: Cisco sues Apple over iPhone trademark infringement. Mmm, juicy. :)
Update3: Okay, so with no expandable memory, no removable battery, no third party software support, and no outlook or exchange support, the iPhone is officially on my not-to-buy list. It doesn’t help, either, that Apple’s premature release of RDF for their touchscreen interface looks especially silly in light of the Synaptics touchscreen demoed at CES 2007.
Looks like I returned home from vacation to a nice surprise– I came in first in my Fantasy Football Pick’em league! Now we’re proceeding to the playoffs pick’em, the rules being 10 points for picking a winning team, regardless of spread, and 5 bonus points if the winning team is an underdog. That said, here are my picks for this weekend:
Let’s see how well I do. Vacation photos are still in queue. (These things take time, because I’m very particular about image contrast, color balance, saturation, noise reduction…)
With the New Year comes renewed vigor for previously-pursued-but-not-yet-realized goals and a healthy amount of catch-up-blogging, or such is the case for yours truly. Since my last post, quite a lot has happened. I’ve purchased a new laptop, played with my friend’s Wii (har har), spent 5 hours in line at the Times Square Toys “R” Us, and given up Disgaea 2 for FFXII (there are only so many hours in a day). I’ve also spent time in Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Japan. Right now I’m at the airport in Osaka, and they’ve already started boarding my flight, so I’ll have to fill in the details later. For now, have a happy 2007– whatever that means for you.