fling93 loves fishies

Nat and Cat

Yeah, I think I bit off more than I can chew this week. 15 units of classes at San Jose State plus I'm attending another class I'm considering adding (no, I'm not planning on taking 18 units, but I haven't figured out which class to drop yet so I'm still attending all of them), plus working part-time at my last job (well hey, it's a helluva much higher paid position than that of most of my classmates), and then spending a ridiculous amount of time on the silly 2005 Mix CD. And apparently, now I'm also on the photography staff of the Spartan Daily (although they've yet to run anything of mine yet).

So that's why no update so far.

Well, I promised the Top 6 of my favorite kitty photos, so you'll still get a Top 6. I just probably won't finish all 6 within Sweeps Week (“Oh, boo hoo!” you say). And as I have way too many favorite Natalie Portman photos, I'm not going to actually go through the trouble of ranking them. Instead, I'll just upload 6 of them in no particular order. I hope none of you mind (not like you got much choice in the matter).

So, in case you hadn't already noticed, here's a random photo of the hotness that is Natalie Portman. It's not a great quality scan, but I love the picture anyway. And of course, now that I'm obsessed with photography, I now can tell that this is a nice use of depth of field, having her dreamy eyes in sharp focus and the rest of her gradually getting out of focus.

Anyway, here's my number 5 favorite kitty cat photo (yeah, if you've already gone through my Flickr account, all of these will be familiar). Ready? One… two… three… Awwww!

That's all for now! Come back later! How much later? How should I know? That's why they invented RSS feeds.

Pitiful Sweeps Week Wrapup

Okay, okay. I didn't come close to delivering on my promised Blog Sweeps Week posts of kitty cat and Natalie Portman photos. Don't worry. I'll get to them later. Seems like my stats (such as they are) did okay anyway (you can check them out yourself if you're so inclined). Not too many hits on the photos themselves, so I'm chalking it up to the fact that I've been posting more frequently (especially compared to November or December), and everybody knows that search engines love frequent updates.

The economist-wanna-be in me of course would consider this a perverse incentive to write a lot — even if you have nothing to say and even about subjects you don't know anything about. While the political-scientist-wanna-be in me would notice that, like many politicians, I was rewarded for making bold promises that I did not intend to keep. And the journalist-wanna-be-in-me would notice that the blogging medium rewards post-frequency over credibility — much like how journalists are incentivized more by deadlines than really understanding the fields they're writing about. This reinforces the obvious fact that the blogosphere has a long, long way to go from becoming the ideal meritocracy that will unseat traditional media (which is something I admitted even when I pronounced journalism a dying field).

Anyway, I would like to point out that I did actually intend to post every day. I just knew that it wasn't bloody likely with my schedule. Indeed, I was a total idiot and added a class (Beginning Photojournalism) to push my course-load at SJSU to 18 units before realizing it was past the drop deadline. Um, yeah. I guess as an engineer at a startup, I got used to ignoring deadlines as being ridiculously unrealistic. So I get a rude real-world lesson after leaving the real world to go back to school. Go figure.

Also, I ended up spending the bulk of my allotted blogging time working on the write-up for my 2005 Mix CD, which is almost done. Stay tuned for that. No, really. I am almost done. Aw heck, who needs credibility anyway?

My 2005 Mix CD

I think there are three kinds of music listeners. There are people who just shuffle their entire CD collection, people who create tailor-made playlists for every kind of circumstance and occasion, and people who listen to Michael Bolton because they like his hair. I happen to fall into the first category. When I use Windows, I use an old Winamp weighted-shuffler plugin RoboDJ (alas, no longer being maintained, but it still works fine). Similarly, when I use Macs, I use smart playlists to create a Do-It-Yourself Smart Radio Station. And if it happens to be 4:20 (which seems to be fairly often for some reason), I generally turn on the G-Force visualization (although, now that I have a new PC that can handle it, I'm giving Milkdrop a try).

Anyway, this was always reflected when I made mix CDs or tapes. I'd just pick a bunch of my favorite songs, mostly alternating the slow and fast ones to provide for a more shuffle-like variety. I never really put too much thought into the order or picking songs specifically to fit with each other, and I had no idea there was a whole art to that. And I suppose this showed on My 2004 Mix CD (although it still single-handedly propelled Howie Day's “Collide” and the Killers' “Mr. Brightside” into big hits).

Friday Cat Blogging, Special Saturday Edition

Yes, Miette. I know. I've been lax with the kitty cat pictures that I promised for Blogs Sweeps Week. I know that this is trying your patience. I already explained the extenuating circumstances.

Yes, your worshipfulness. I know that excuses mean nothing to you. Yes, I know fully well that you can kill me with your brain. I am correcting the issue as we speak. Yes, I know you are displeased that I am reduced to blatantly ripping off Fafblog! for my material.

Busted!

New favorite show: Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel (and not just cuz of Kari Byron).

Myths are debunked by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, two silly geeks who are special-effects experts and love building stuff. I mean, really love building stuff. They will not just debunk the myth, but will go to great lengths to build whatever it takes to show what it would actually take for the myth to happen.

For example, take the myth about the guy who overfilled his washing machine and then fell into the machine and got violently spun around. Well of course, washing machines won't spin if you open the lid, so they could've just stopped there. But no, they decide to override that safety mechanism, only to find that washing machine engines don't have nearly enough torque to spin a person. They could've stopped there, but no, they decide to hook up a car engine to the washing machine to see if that would be enough…

You get the picture. Best part, the narrator makes fun of them for all this! It's great fun for the viewers and the Mythbuster team as well, and they also do a great job clearly explaining the science behind everything with amusing animations (and yes, they do get the science right). Both Erika and I enjoy it thoroughly, and there are not too many shows we both love (although I finally got her hooked on Battlestar Galactica — but goddamn, they took their sweet time before finally doing another decent episode).

So check it out! It's just icing on the cake that Kari Byron is cute and cool beyond words (and quite a talented artist as well).

Oh, is she a redhead? I hadn't noticed.