The Cartoon That Shaped My Childhood
I had a VHS tape of the program Donald in Mathmagic Land that I can remember watching all the time as a child. It's a wonder if you've never heard of it since it was one of the most popular educational films ever made by Disney.
This little 27 minute cartoon introduced me to topics such as music theory, the golden ratio, geometry, and I feel most importantly: the concept of infinity.
Thanks to the wonder of the internet, you can now watch the program in its entirety on youtube, but I've conveniently embedded it here for you to watch!
Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe.
-Galileo Galilei
Mohawk vs. Fauxhawk
Scott's ribbing got me all riled up. So here's an informational post on the differences between a mohawk and a fauxhawk haircut/style.
Etymology: of Algonquian origin; akin to Narragansett or Massachusett Mohowawog Mohawk, literally, cannibalDate: 16343 : a hairstyle with a narrow center strip of usually upright hair and the sides of the head shaved
Here are some examples of a mohawk haircut fresh from the tubes of the Internet:
Since "fauxhawk" isn't really a word, it's not in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, we must look to urbandictionary.com.
fauxhawk: A full head of hair combed into the middle to fabricate the look of a mohawk.
As you can clearly see, fauxhawks don't have a defined line from where the short and long hair meet. It's basically just combed straight up into the shape of a mohawk. Fauxhawks are generally associated with pop-culture and general douchebaggery. Mohawks are generally associated with anti-pop-culture.
And for my final exhibit: a photo of me. I have a mohawk, not a fauxhawk.
If you're going to do something, do it all out. fauxhawks are a cop-out for people who don't want to make the commitment of shaving the sides of their head.
Changing The Way I Collect Music
I've amassed a lot of digital music over the years. Lots of times I'd download the entire album even if I just wanted one song... 'cause, you know... there might be some other good music on the album.
Sorry to say, that this wasn't the case in 70%-80% of the music I downloaded. I've always been a pretty fanatical completionist (are you an incrementalist or a completionist?) so I'd keep the bad songs around with the good ones, "because then I have the whole album," or "I might like that sometime in the future."
No More!
You may know about my obsessive iTunes star ratings, so I know what songs I don't really like. However, I'm not going to blindly delete all my 1 and 2-star rated songs. I'm going to delete songs as I come across them during my normal listening schedule for each day. I don't expect to delete any more than 4 or 5 songs a day from my 4,000 song, 20 GB music library.
Do you think I'm going about this the right way? Am I stupid for deleting songs in this age of extremely cheap storage mediums? Let me know. The deleting begins today.
First song to bite the dust and see the inside of my trash bin? "Full Moon" by The Black Ghosts.
My Latest Creation
As some of you may already know, I've started brewing my own beer at home ("homebrewing" creates "homebrew"). I've made some 2.5 gallon batches here and there including an American Light Ale, an Oatmeal Stout, and a few other misc brews. Then I decided to invest in some better equipment. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Beer is a great kit to start out with, but I felt the quality of the beer I could create was being held back by some of the more simplistic equipment and ingredients that you get with Mr. Beer.
I now have a problem: I have a bunch of glass bottles with different styles of beer in them. The majority of these bottles are unlabeled. Luckily, I have two different color bottle caps that I've used, but that's really the only differentiation between the bottles at the moment.
I've decided that whenever I create a new batch of beer, I'm going to create a custom label for it. just like commercial micro-breweries do. I'll print out the labels on my inkjet printer on plain paper, cut them up, and adhere them to the bottles using Elmers' Spray Adhesive (the stuff schoolkids use to tack things to display boards for presentations). With the type of spray glue I'm using, it shouldn't be too hard to remove the labels once the bottle is empty. I understand that the inkjet printer won't produce the best and most lasting results, but it'll do for now.
So, I proudly unveil my first-ever label. It's for my latest batch which I'm calling "Bitter Old Lady IPA" (India Pale Ale).
I'll be printing, cutting, and adhering the labels tonight. Who knows... if this turns out to be way more of a hassle than its worth this may also be my last label!
Bitter Old Lady IPA
And here is the label on a few test bottles:
Collaborative Songwriting
My friend Jon loves to play the guitar. So the other day he started sending me a few audio files of songs he recorded (small clips).
So what do I do with the files? What any sane person would do: bring 'em into Garage Band and record the lead guitar part with nothing other than my vocal chords.
Here's two songs we collaborated on. I hope you enjoy them.
Dream Theater: The Count of Tuscany
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Muse: Hysteria
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Yeah... they're not that good... mostly because of my horrible hackjob on the vocals, but it was fun 
Family Photo Day
After Church today, I was tasked with taking the family photo for the Christmas letter this year since we hadn't all been able to take it earlier. They're going out tomorrow with the yearly Christmas letter in the mail so everyone should get theirs by Christmas.
Luckily I brought my tripod, remote shutter release device ("the spoon") and a 10 foot cord so that I was able to be in the photo. Framing and taking photos while being a subject at the same time is difficult!
Anyways, here's the best of the results.
Merry Christmas!
Greensboro Aquatic Center…. Are You Kidding Me?
I don't often write about local news and events, but I'm just so perplexed by what's happening with the recent Greensboro, NC proposed Aquatic Center.
Turns out that the city council passed a measure (5-4) to put an additional $7 million bond on the next ballot because the first bond won't be enough to pay for the center. Granted, the taxpayers voted in favor of using bonds to finance it during the last election cycle. Wait... what? I wonder if anyone has ever done a poll of voters to see how many of them actually know what a bond is?
Bond:
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest (the coupon) and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity. A bond is a formal contract to repay borrowed money with interest at fixed intervals.
I'll be willing to bet that if all voters realized that a bond is a fancy name for a great big loan and that you actually have to pay it back, that greater than 50% of those who voted for the bond to build the aquatic center would not have voted that way. Why doesn't the city save up money it needs by operating under budget, and when they have enough money to build the aquatic center, then build it? (That was a rhetorical question... we all know that governments-especially those in the great state of North Carolina-can't control their spending).
Now the Greensboro City Council have decided that the cost will be more than originally thought! Whoda-thunk-it?!
I'm sure that there was some heavy lobbying to get the first bond measure on the ballot by companies that stand to make a profit from building and/or operating the aquatic center
Personally, I vote all bond issues down-no matter what. There no reason the government can't save up for something to pay for it later. It's this whole American system of instant gratification and digging yourself into a debt hole.
Recommended Reading
- Live Webcast Fail
- Best Superbowl photo ever
- Al Franken Makes Comcast's CEO Look Like A Tool
- Metric Map: Which Countries Don’t Belong With The Others?
- Hug E Gram / HugEGram Commercial - Complete fail
Nike+ Running Stats
- Total runs: 165
- Total distance: 293.73mi
- Total time: 85hr 29min 50sec
- Total calories: 39,338
- Avg pace per mi: 17'27"
- Avg distance per run: 1.78mi
- Avg calories per run: 238.41
My Records
- Farthest Run: 6.43mi
- Fastest Mile: 8'44"
- Fastest 5K: 32'10"
- Fastest 10K:2hr 16min 12sec
My Recent Runs
- December 6, 2009, 7:43pm
- Distance: 6.43mi
- Duration: 2hr 20' 26"
- Calories: 816
- November 26, 2009, 11:57pm
- Distance: 0.08mi
- Duration: 1' 25"
- Calories: 10
- November 26, 2009, 9:26pm
- Distance: 2.41mi
- Duration: 42' 55"
- Calories: 305
My Nike+ Goals
- Run 8 times in 4 weeks
- So far: 4 runs
- 23 runs behind my goal.