5 Coldest US Cities

With the impending snow storm, I've been checking TWC's website. I came across this article called "America's Top 5 Coldest Cities" (aka. places I never want to move to). Some people love the cold, and these are great places for them, but not me. Anyway, I found the data interesting (sub-zero days, record lows, etc.).

How Gaming Can Save the World

It doesn't take too long to find articles online talking about how bad games are for us and are a waste of our time. Slashdot provided some links last week on How Gaming Can Save the World. I've been watching the video linked here and the lady does make some good points; the virtual world can teach us a lot about the real world.

Luckiest Price Is Right Contestant Ever

I used to love this show when I was a kid, but I haven't watched it in years. I came across this video the other day and was pretty amazed at how lucky this guy was. The video is a little long, but it's worth watching if you're a fan of the show.

Weed-A-Pult

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Well, down south there is a necessity to get the goods across the border, so why not make like a King Arther and catapult your drugs. I don't encourage crime, but if you're going to do it, you may as well be clever about it and these guys did a good job (until they got caught).

Really Great Workout Routine

It's hard to find a workout method that'll stick. I think this one may do it though.

Dog Finds Owner after 5 Years

Here's another feel good story; a dog finds his owner after 5 years missing. It was in the same town, but the owner had moved several times. For some reason I picture the movie "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey", but it was probably less dramatic.

United States of Shame

Here is a link to a map of the US showing things that states are leading in, that are not things to be proud of. Now we know there's no perfect place here in the US to live (actually, maybe Iowa wouldn't be that bad). The best part is, the link provides further links to it's statistical data.

Breaking it Down for the Jumbo-Tron

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

When a camera is on your and some groovy tunes are playing, it makes you do some jive dancing. This guy was a well deserved winner... wait for it, it's worth it.

The Pachelbel Rant

I saw this years ago, but keep thinking about it and have mentioned it to the people the people I play music with. In all truthfulness, many songs out there are the same thing recycled, just creatively.

Bonus: If you are a fan of the cello and want to see a sweet cello performance, click here.

Guy asks the Internet for $1 Million... He gets it

As the saying goes "You have not because you ask not". Here is a story of a guy who asked the Internet for $1 Million and then received it. He didn't give a specific reason, so it's safe to say that he just wanted it. Some rich dude just decided he'd make some poor dude wealthy... that was nice of him. If anyone wants to give me $1 million with no strings attached (or even $100) feel free to let me know.

SysAdmin's Prayer

On one of the mailing lists I'm on, I received a link to the "SysAdmin's Prayer". Just because things online have a tendency to disappear, here it is copy and pasted:

Our Router, which art in IOS
hallowed be thy interface
thy packets come
thy routing be done
on the LAN as it is on the Web.
Give us this day our daily Clues
And forgive us our LARTings
As we LART those who make stupid service requests
And lead us not into Windows support
but deliver us from lusers
For thine is the Network
The Bandwidth and the Packet
For the duration of the DHCP lease.
Amen

I'm not recommending praying to your router, but I got a good laugh out of this, so I thought I'd share.

This is the Internet

I'm a big fan of the British show "The IT Crowd". Here is a link to one of my favorite clips from the show. Unfortunately the embed code is disabled on this video, but it's well worth the extra click. If you haven't seen the episodes of this, I highly recommend the show, especially if you're in the IT field (it's available on Netflix).

UT Jazz Bear Pwns Fan

I must admit, I do have a small fear of team mascots. An event such as this is one of the reasons. The bear was trying to be funny (and succeeding) when things got a little out of hand. Granted, the event was probably staged, but it was still funny.

What do you call a group of...

Maybe I'm easily amazed (have you looked at some of the stuff I've blogged about), but I always get a kick out of what a group of animals is called. Here is a great list of "what groups of animals are called". Now you know why you shudder every time you see a "murder" of ravens.

Evaporating Water in -30 degree Weather

We've reached that point in the winter where it seems like the cold weather will never end. I found this video of boiling water turning to snow to be appropriate for this time of year.

Watching Someone Internet

When you're working on a computer, you have a way that you do things. Sometimes watching others work can be a bit frustrating. This video elaborates.

The Snow Cleaner

What a profound job this guy does at cleaning snow from cars. I hope he charges quite a bit to do it, because at that rate he's not going to make too much money, plus there is some entertainment value in his precision. It's actually a bit creepy.

Evolution of the Batmobile

As much as I like Batman (probably my favorite Superhero), I don't keep up with him as much as I used to. I do know, however, that over the years, he's had some sweet rides, although the one that comes to mind most often is the suped-up Lincoln from the Adam West series. Here is an infographic showing the evolution of the Batmobile.

7 Flash Games Based on Modern Video Games

If you say you're a gamer and you mean you play flash-based games, you may get laughed at, but there's really a lot of good flash games out there. It appears that now, they're adapting many modern video games into flash games. Not only does the link provide you with a list of 7 games that based on modern games, but it provides the links to play them. That should keep you busy for a while.

Han Solo in Firefly

One of the all time best Sci-Fi series that barely was is Joss Whedon's Firefly. The story and the characters are just amazing. In so many ways, it has that Star Wars feel. Apparently Nathan Fillion is a huge fan of Star Wars and would sneak a Han Solo frozen in carbonite statue into scenes.

Side note- if you haven't seen Firefly, I highly recommend it. It was prematurely canceled (for no good reason, let me add) but if you don't like it, you're only out around 14 episodes.

Walking a Straight Line

A Mystery: Why Can't We Walk Straight? from NPR on Vimeo.

When I came across this video a little earlier I was really surprised. It would seem expected that we couldn't walk a straight line, but the rest of the findings are quite stunning. Although, the studies they referenced were from the 1920's (during prohibition), no telling what they were drinking back then ;).

Making B-Boy Abe Lincoln

If you're looking for another party trick and are adept at origami, here is a great way to make Abe Lincoln with a cap. Best case scenario, you make a hip Lincoln, worst case, you get frustrated, cut up the bill and draw your own cap on him and are out $5.

Shotgun-Proof Harddrive

CES was last week, the time where we see all kinds of super cool stuff that we'll never use or probably see in production. In that list of super cool is this hard drive that can withstand a shot from a 12-guage. They don't advertise that it can withstand a shotgun spraying, but it appears to do the trick (although, hopefully you're never put in that situation).

Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know

When I talk to younger people, I'm often surprised at how much of my pop culture was before their time. I was sent this link about "Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know" earlier today and it kind of makes me sad. A lot of these technologies have some great nostalgic values (the watch), but when you think about it, the future is a wonderful place. We take technologies for granted many times; it's difficult to imagine what the world was like 15-ish years ago before the wide spread use of Internet.

Blackberry Not Working

I'm a huge fan of British humor, but even if you're not, you'll probably enjoy this one. The best part is the very last line.

Oregon Fan Wants to Marry Auburn fan on a Bet

This is one of the worst wagers I've heard of in a while. An Oregon Ducks fan is willing to wage his first marriage on the fact that the Ducks will "crush" the tigers. He has posted a Craigslist wager looking for a girl to meet him in Vegas and marry him for one day if the ducks lose. Some may see this as him just being a dedicated and confident fan, but he's going just a little too far. And here lies possibly the number one problem with marriage today.... people just don't take it serious enough. To avoid going on a useless rant, I'll just say, marriage isn't something to throw away and try again when it work and definitely not something to wager.

Homeless Man Gets His Chance

Throughout the week there has been an amazing story of a homeless man with an amazing voice who got discovered due to a viral video. The guy went from being homeless to being semi-famous in a matter of days. I was going to embed the videos here, but the story is pretty much on every news site, so I'm going to assume you've seen them (if not click the link above). The reason I'm blogging this is just in case you haven't seen it. I find it neat that in the first week of the new year, we may already have the "feel good" story of they year. Here's to a year filled with helping those in need.

The No Soap Experiment

If someone smells funky, you may say "Wow, that guy really needs some soap", but perhaps what he needs is less soap. I'm a skeptic in general, so I don't think I'll try this, but they bring up some interesting points. There's actually a lot of stuff online about the advantages of not using soap or shampoo. From my search I found that you, of course, use hand soap, and some people use deodorant still, but that's about all. Who knows it could be an elaborate hoax, but it's going under my classification of "If it's on the Internet, it must be true".

What to do on a Space Date

Thankfully it has been a long time since I was part of the dating game. Most of it is rather quite an awkward dance. Here is a great 50's era dub over Star Wars on "What to do on a Date".

Malfoy Now Allowed to Tan

I've heard of actors losing weight for parts in a movie, but the actor who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies agreed for 10 years to not tan. Now that the movies are over, he has the freedom to get some sun. Being a pale person myself, I can attest that not getting sun isn't all that bad; granted getting sun usually doesn't do me too much good. I thought the story was fairly unique and interesting.

The R2D2 Theory

Earlier today I was sent a link to an interesting Star Wars theory that really makes sense. The link can be found on this Jeep forum and was posted several years ago. I'll go ahead and paste the lengthy text here, but this is not in any way my writing, but that of someone named Keith, whom I do not know.

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Consider: at the end of RotS, Bail Organan orders 3PO's memory wiped but not R2's. He wouldn't make the distinction casually. Both droids know that Yoda and Obi-Wan are alive and are plotting sedition with the Senator from Alderaan. They know that Amidala survived long enough to have twins and could easily deduce where they went. However, R2 must make an impassioned speech to the effect that he is far more use to them with his mind intact: he has observed Palpatine and Anakin at close quarters for many years, knows much that is useful and is one of the galaxy's top experts at hacking into other people's systems. Also he can lie through his teeth with a straight face. Organa, in immediate need of espionage resources, agrees.

For the next 20 years, as far as 3PO knows, he is the property of Captain Antilles, doing protocol duties on a diplomatic transport. He is vaguely aware of the existence of the princess but doesn't know much about her. Wherever 3PO goes, being as loud and obvious as he always is, his unobtrusive little counterpart goes with him. 3PO is R2's front man. Wherever they land, R2 is passing messages between rebel sympathisers and sizing up governments as potential rebel recruits - both by personal contact and by hacking into their networks. He passes his recommendations on to Organa.

Yoda is out of the picture by this stage, using the Force-infused swamps of Dagobah to hide himself from Vader and the Emperor. Or something. He is meditating on the future and keeping in touch with Obi-Wan via the ghost of Qui-Gon Jin, which as comm systems go has the virtue of being untappable. Obi-Wan, on Tattoine, keeps in touch with Bail Organa and the other Rebel leaders by courier, of which more later.

As Star Wars opens, R2 is rushing the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. R2, not Leia. The plans are always in R2. What Leia puts into him in the early scene is only her own holographic message to Kenobi. Leia's own mission, as she says in the holographic message, is to pick up Obi-Wan and take him to Alderaan - or so she thinks. Actually, her father just wants her to meet Kenobi, which up to this point she never has. There's a reason for that.

Obi-Wan has spent the last 20 years in the Tattoine desert, keeping watch over Luke Skywalker and trying to decide on one of the three available options:
A) If Luke shows no significant access to the Force, then leave him alone in obscurity
B) If Luke shows real Force ability, then consider recruiting him as a Jedi. The rebellion needs Jedi. Now.
But, if Luke shows any signs of turning out like his father, then C) sneak into his house one fine night and chop his head off. With great regret but it'll save a lot of trouble later on.
Knowing this to be the case, Bail Organa (perhaps at the insistence of his wife) has found excuses not to send Leia to Ben for assessment of Jedi potential, largely for fear of option C.

To be fair to all concerned, Leia has shown no overt signs of a link to the Force. Luke on the other hand has. In his home-built hotrod aircraft, with no formal fighter pilot training and no decent instrumentation, Luke can regularly score centre-hits on 2-metre targets in complicated zero-altitude maneouvres. Until he attends the briefing on Yavin, Luke has no way of knowing that hardened combat pilots would consider that nearly impossible. To him it's easy. Obi-Wan, who saw Anakin's performance in the Pod Race, is nervous.

Much of Obi-Wan's behaviour in this film, and Yoda's in the next, can best be understood if they are frankly scared to death of what Luke might become. (Ben is also scared that he himself will make all the same mistakes he made with Anakin.)

Now, with the existence of the rebellion at stake, Bail Organa has finally told Leia to go see Obi-Wan and has sent her along with R2. The original plan would then be for Obi-Wan (with optional Luke and/or Leia in tow) to leave his exile and take the Death Star plans to Yavin, where they can be put to use. R2 (with Leia if Ben doesn't want to take her) would then carry on to Alderaan to maintain the cover story. The original plan does not survive contact with a large Imperial Star Destroyer.

R2 and 3PO bail out in an escape pod, landing in vaguely the right area of Tattoine, where R2's first priority is transport. He arranges to be captured by a group of Jawas and, once on board their transport, he makes a deal with them (possibly using emergency funds stored about his person) to take him where he wants to go. The Jawas refuse to go directly to Kenobi for fear of marauding Sandpeople but they agree to R2's second request : transport to the Skywalker farm. They even get to keep the purchase price if they can sell R2 and 3PO there. The Jawas shake on it and go through with the plan.

Seeing 3PO fail to recognise the farm where he worked for 10 years gives r2 a moment's amusement but, as soon as possible, he gets away and heads for Kenobi. Luke and 3PO follow, which may or may not have been part of the plan.

On first seeing R2, Obi-Wan has a twinkle in his eye and calls him "my little friend". Well, he is. However, when Luke wakes up and says that R2 claimed to be owned by an Obi-Wan Kenobi, he blandly says "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Ben has in fact owned several but the remark is aimed at R2 and translates as "You keep quiet. I'm not about to tell him everything just yet." Obi-Wan thinks fast and tells Luke a version of his past that does not involve a father who became a dark lord of the Sith. He wants to examine Luke a lot more closely before he risks telling him the real truth.

Although the Death Star plans need to get to Yavin as soon as possible, Obi-Wan needs to make one more diversion first. If the Empire knows that Leia is a Rebel leader, then they also know about her father and the whole Organa family may need immediate evacuation. Fortunately, before coming to Tattoine, R2 had already arranged transport, which is waiting at Mos Eisley, under the command of the Rebellion's other chief field agent and espionage asset. Chewbacca.

...

20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet. He's there in the tactical conferences and there on the front lines and is a personal friend of Yoda's. When he needed reliable people to join the embryonic Alliance, who else would Yoda turn to but his old friend from Kashykk? Given his background, there is no way that Chewie would spend the crucial years of the rebellion as the second-in-command to (sorry Han) a low-level smuggler. Unless it's his cover. In fact, Chewie is a top-line spy and flies what is in many ways the Rebellion's best ship.

The Millenium Falcon may look like a beat-up old freighter but it can outrun any Imperial ship in normal space or hyperspace, hang in a firefight with a Star Destroyer or outmaneouvre a dozen top-of-the-line TIE fighters. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and must have cost a colossal fortune to build. How does Han come to own a ship like that? He only thinks he does, actually it's Chewie's. Half-way through RotS, we see the Falcon landing at the Senate building on Coruscant. If it's the same ship (which of course it is) then it was the personal transport of one of the senatorial delegations - a much more likely source to commission its design. That delegatino must have later joined the Rebellion and given it the use of the Falcon. In fact, if the delegation is the one from Kashykk, then the ship may have belonged to Chewbacca as early as RotS.

Han is Chewie's front man. It's much better, and safer for him, if he doesn't know what's really going on. Chewie used to work with Lando Calrissian in a similar way but Lando wanted to settle down, so Chewie arranged for him to lose the Falcon in a card game to Han Solo, an even better choice as partner. Han and Chewie's working method is pretty much what we see in the cantina scene: Chewie make the contacts and sets up the deals, then turns them over to Han who haggles over the price and gives the final yea or nay. This lets Chewie wander the seamy underside of the galaxy pretty much at will, making contacts, gathering and passing information with no-one was the wiser, especially not Han.

Chewie persuaded Han to do business with Jabba the Hutt so he could make regular runs to Tattoine, where Chewie could pass messages between Kenobi and Organa. When R2's urgent message came through only days before, the only way for Chewie to get back to Tattoine in time was to make the "mistake" that forced Han to dump his cargo to avoid capture. As a down side, this led to Solo's getting a death mark out on him from Jabba the Hutt. Chewie was a bit upset about the need for that but figured they weren't going to be dealing with Tattoine for much longer.

En route to Alderaan, R2 and Chewie play stop-motion chess. This is the latest in a series of games they've played over the year in the back rooms of space stations and cantinas across the galaxy, but this is the first time they've done it in front of their respective straight men, so they put on a big show.

Then it all goes wrong again. Alderaan is gone and the Falcon is caught and brought aboard the Death Star. Only Han, Luke and 3PO don't know just how much trouble they're in but Obi-Wan has a plan and seems confident (but Jedi always do). Soon afterwards, R2 finds Leia in the detention cells and shouts that they have to rescue her, to which Chewie can only agree. If Vader learns he has a daughter, then they're all in deep trouble, so Chewie does his bit to persuade Han to go along with Luke's plan.

Then, on the verge of escape, Vader himself turns up only yards from both of his children, one of whom is leaking Force all over the place. Obi-Wan stages a distraction by letting himself die and go into the Force while the others escape. At this point, Chewie suddenly realises that he's been left in charge, not only of the Death Star Plans and the survival of the Rebellion but of the secret son and daughter of Darth Vader. With the Organas and Kenobi all dead, only Chewie, R2 and Yoda know who Luke and Leia are. And only Ob-Wan knew where Yoda has been hiding. Chewie is stressed out by the responsibility and R2 (who keeps making crude jokes about the whole affair) is being no help at all.

Chewie's first problem is what is happening between Luke and Leia. With a psychic link they can feel but don't understand, thrown together in a life-or-death escape, they are looking at each other with a sparky intensity that Chewie gradually recognises as Romantic Tension. He's no expert on human relationships but Chewie is fairly sure that that's Wrong, so he does the only thing he can under the circumstances - he throws Han at her. Han is at first not interested but after a while starts to warm to the idea with an intensity that gives Chewie new worries.

When they reach Yavin, Han decides to take the money and run and Chewie decides to go with him. Looked at in cold light, it's for the good of the Rebellion. Even if Yavin is destroyed, there'll be one agent who knows what's going on who can try and put something back together, but he doesn't feel good about it. When Han decides to turn around and join the attack, Chewie is all for it.

Han and Luke get medals but Chewie doesn't. Actually, Leia offers him one but Chewie turns it down. He got one of those things from Yoda about 20 years ago, but there's no way he can tell her that.

As the film ends, the three founders of the Rebellion are all gone. Bail Organa is dead, Yoda is out of contact and Obi-Wan's ghost can only talk to other Jedi. (So that would be Yoda then.) Thus, the field leadership of the rebellion has just been turned over to the daughter of Darth Vader. Chewie is really hoping that someone with an official rank greater than hers will get here real soon before he has to think really seriously about option C.

© Keith Martin 2005



No cliff notes ... well, my basic cliff note is this: R2D2 and Chewbacca are the REAL heroes of the story. If you look closely enough.

The story is not mine, copied and pasted. I am not keith martin.

Hardware Conversations

If you've used a computer, you probably know one of the functions that fail most often is printing. It seems like printers just have a bad attitude. Here is a link to a conversation between various computer hardware that a friend sent me today. I truly believe this goes on from time to time. Printers don't play well with others.

Classic Helicopter Game

I started playing the new Donkey Kong Country game over the Christmas/New Years season and it's a good game, although difficult. I got to a few levels, however, where DK rides a barrel propelled by a jet as an aircraft. I was immediately really good at this part of the game and realized it was because of the hours I spent playing "The Helicopter Game". The helicopter game is one of those ridiculously addictive games that draw you in. I'll admit, I'm pretty horrible at the new DK game, and my wife (as Diddy Kong) pulled us through most of it, but I really excelled at the barrel levels because the controls are exactly the same as the helicopter game.

Bringing Back the Poll

I thought that with a New Year, perhaps I should bring back to poll. I enjoyed doing them and I hope others enjoyed them as well. My main problem was coming up with a new question every month. I won't guarantee a new one every month, but I'll try to do my best. This month's is - Which order is the best to watch the Star Wars movies in.

Muppets with People Eyes

When you take a muppet and put people eyes in it, things just get a little creepy. It's kinda what I fear about the live action Smurfs movie, but we'll see. The above linked site is pretty scary if you've ever been afraid of your stuffed animals coming to life.

Hood Dad - New Internet Meme

It's a new year, so time for a new Internet meme. I've seen the Hood Dad meme pop up over the last few weeks online and it makes me laugh every time. It seems like the older you get, the less hip you are, so making a middle aged guy into a gangsta turns out to be pretty funny.