So these are some thoughts I have had recently:

1. WHY? why, I ask you, is it considered perfectly sanitary to wash your hands once done taking a dump... but ONLY after you have rubbed your hands all over your clothes to put them all on?

2. Why are there hate speech laws? What makes them constitutional? I was under the impression that given the first amendment I could say what I want. I realize the whole "don't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater" thing, but dammit if I want to yell fire in a crowded theater I should be able to.

Besides, who defines what 'hate' is? Some people have stated statistics about race and crime, but it's deemed 'hate speech'. I think if someone from the KKK goes "I hate black people" then yes, that's hate speech. If someone goes "50% of crimes are committed by young black males who constitute 15% of the population" (MADE UP NUMBERS) then that's definitely not hate speech, but there are examples where people say it is.

3. What ever happened to Smoove B?

4. The 'metro', a paper published and distributed for free along the subway in boston had a survey of 2 girls and a guy about what they thought the big summer blockbuster would be. The girls both said "sex and the city". The guy said "ironman". Wow.. they surveyed idiots. Sex and the city will blow. Ironman is already out. And why didn't the guy think of "Dark Knight"? I demand that his Y chromosome be removed forthwith.

5. I wish people would cite sources more. I'm tired of seeing articles (I'm picking on environmentalism right now, but this applies to everything) that tell me things but don't tell me where they got it. Example:

"If you don't eat a hamburger today you will save 3 tons of C02!"

Really? REALLY? Prove it! Prove to me that if I don't eat a hamburger the effect will be that direct. Show me that the shift in meat demand will have the direct affect of the cutting back of meat plants. Maybe it will lower price and then shift distribution other areas? I don't know that.. but neither do those people! Let's think holistically here!

Secondly, show me that if I cut meat demand such that meat packing plants get shut down that I can do something useful with the land. People don't think about that so much, but their is a reason feed lots are were they are. This is generally because the land isn't so good for crops. This is also the reason why you can't believe the statistics about the benefits of cutting meat production on the production of plants because the land isn't interchangeable. (I learned this during a talk with a friend who was affiliated with farming).

Also, laundry detergent! They are all like "performs better than the leading brand". Who are they to make such claims? Besides, if brand 'A' performs better than the leading brand 'B', wouldn't that make 'A' the leading brand? But an object cannot be better than itself, by definition. Therefore I win.

6. I saw organic, environmentally friendly yogurt in a non-recylable plastic tube in which the volume of material used in making the tube was a comparable percentage of volume of yogurt.

7. Apparently no matter how paranormal an adversary, doesn't matter if it came from hell, from another dimension, or is invulnerable; it can always be killed with a rocket launcher. This pleases me.

8. DARK KNIGHT THIS SUMMER AAAAAH SO AMPED!!

9. Saw a drunk hobo on a subway. It was 10 am. He was drunk on listerine. He also rambled about flyin F-16s in 'nam (hint, look up when F-16s were first made). Also, he wanted to fight me.

That's all for now. Hope your weeks are going well.

Hey guys, how's it goin'?

Just a reminder, this summer I'm in Wichita.  I'm working for Heartspring, and it really sucks.  I mean sure, the multi-touch surface development part of it is good, but mostly I'm fairly miserable.  Also, my realtionship with your mother continues in a steady holding pattern; it's very similar to the last time we spoke.

I thought today I'd share a couple links and give blatantly over-bearing opinions afterwards!

First up, this gem: 

God, I love that picture.  Isn't it perky?

Secondly, this, which I found on reddit, my favorite Web 2.0 site. I have to say, I'm really jazzed about the possibilites opened up by the article to the field discussed within.  It really makes me realize how bright the future is, and how much I have to be thankful for.

Third.  Grrrrr.  Look at this site: HOW CAN SOMEONE THINK LIKE THIS!? MAN!  AAGH!  THIS JUST PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH!  THIS is what's WRONG with the world, and why we're all doomed!  Man, the world is in such a crappy place, and we're all gonna DIE!  I'm glad I think this instead!

I think that's all the links I wanted to share.  Oh, oh, howzabout a crazy life story!  So last month I was out with some friends at a nother planet and we saw a n alien.  My friend Nolan was like, "Haha, look at that creature of God' goodness".  At which point, we challenged each other to see if either one of us would ask it if it had a soul.  Turns out, I couldn't understand what it was saying, but my buddy was crazy anyway and didn't care.

It's like they say in Futurama; "It's not nuthin!"!!

Talk to you soon!

- Riley

*****

I will only give you my lasers if I get four of yours (because I'm posting enough for everyone, let's be honest).

--

I would also like to state that while I haven't posted a ton, I have posted plenty since this site opened. So there.

Hey guys, how's it goin'?

Just a reminder, this summer I'm in Wichita.  I'm working for Wichita State, and it really sucks.  I mean sure, the thesis part of it is good, but mostly I'm fairly miserable.  Also, my realtionship with Emily continues in a steady holding pattern; it's very similar to the last time we spoke.

I thought today I'd share a couple links and give blatantly over-bearing opinions afterwards!

First up, this gem:

God, I love that picture.  Isn't it perky?

Secondly, this, which I found on Fazed, my favorite Web 2.0 site: Clicky Pops
I have to say, I'm really jazzed about the possibilites opened up by the video.  It really makes me realize how bright the future is, and how much I have to be thankful for.

Third.  Grrrrr.  Look at this site: ANGER!!!
HOW CAN SOMEONE THINK LIKE THIS!? MAN!  AAGH!  THIS JUST PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH!  THIS is what's WRONG with the world, and why we're all doomed!  Man, the world is in such a crappy place, and we're all gonna DIE!  I'm glad I think THIS instead!

I think that's all the links I wanted to share.  Oh, oh, howzabout a crazy life story!  So last weekend I was out with some friends at graduation and we saw a B-2 Stealth Bomber.  My friend Tim was like, "Haha, look at that F-16".  At which point, we challenged each other to see if either one of us would win Gay Chicken.  Turns out, I won, but my buddy nearly had me by the balls.

It's like they say in my office; "Eat shit and die"!!

Talk to you soon!

-Mike

Yo.

Just so everyone knows, I am safely in Boston (and Zarrin is safe, too). The apartment is nice (it's the first floor of a house). We have food now, and internet. Eating and surfing are the two most important things, and we have them. This is a good thing. 

Zarrin starts work tomorrow, I start wednesday.

Thanks to Nolan and Cayla for letting us crash at your place, it was very nice and appreciated. In case you care, after leaving lawrence Zarrin and I went to her folk's place in Virginia, and we visited DC for two days. I saw the Air and Space Museum, the washington monument, art museums, natural history museum, the capitol building, and the national archives. We also just walked around the city, but it was rainy and cold most of the time.

Ironman ruled... "The Bank Job" was alright. Jason Statham does his usual bad guy that you can't help but root for role.

Everyone enjoy your summers (or ends of semesters if you are still in school) 

Hey guys.

First off, you should have read Nolan's Iron Man post below before diving into this one (which, by the way, I greatly enjoyed). However, as someone who's interested in these sorts of crazy things, now that both Iron Man and GTA IV numbers are available, I'd like to just discuss in a little bit more detail the whole crazy "ZOMG GTA IV WILL KILL IRON MAN" prediction that a lot of pundits and analysts out there were making.

First off, the cold, hard facts.

Iron Man

From Wikipedia:

"In its opening weekend, Iron Man grossed $98,618,668 in 4,105 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #1 at the box office, making it the tenth-biggest movie opening weekend of all time,ninth widest release in terms of theaters, and the highest-grossing opening weekend of 2008. It grossed $35.2 million on its first day, making it the 13th-biggest opening day. Iron Man had the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel, coming behind Spider-Man. It had the fourth-biggest opening for a superhero movie.

As of May 8, 2008, Iron Man has grossed $225.6 million worldwide — $126.6 million in the United States and Canada and $99 million in 57 other countries."

"Estimates for the cost of marketing Iron Man ranged from US$50 to $75 million."

 "Iron Man received very positive reviews from fans and critics alike. As of May 9, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 92% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 177 reviews, with the consensus that "even non-comics fans can enjoy this smart, high impact superhero movie". Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 78 out of 100, based on 37 reviews. 

GTA IV

From Wikipedia:

 "GTA IV sold about 3.6 million units [Riley's Note: later in the article it states that figure at $310 million on day one] on its first day of release and grossed more than $500 million in its first week, breaking the first-week sales record of $300 million set by Halo 3. The release of GTA IV became the "largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment"

"The Xbox 360 version of GTA IV has received an average critic review score of 99% from review aggregators Game Rankings and Metacritic, while the PS3 version has received average scores of 99% from Game Rankings and Metacritic. As of 5 May 2008, those scores place the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions as the #1 highest rated games on their respective consoles on Metacritic, and as the #1 and #2 ranked games of all time respectively on GameRankings, becoming the first game(s) in history to surpass The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's score on that site.^"

"It has been reported to be the most expensive video game to develop at around a budget of 100 Million. There was a pretty good size army of animators and programmers working on this game for a very long time and it shows in a big way." (from http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/digitaljoystick/archives/138128.asp)

Similarities

After reading that info, there's a few things you should immediately come away with. First off, both of these products were incredibly well received by critics. I would argue that although Iron Man received a bit "lower" score, the movie industry has been around a very, very long time, has a wider overall audience, and its critics are generally more seasoned and "picky", for lack of a better term. I would honestly say that, subjectively, the 92% Iron Man received on Rotten Tomatoes is more outstanding than the 99% GTA IV received on MetaCritic. Of course, that's my personal opinion. So, they're both "cream of the crop" in their respective environments.

In addition, both of these products were heavily marketed. I don't know that GTA IV was as heavily marketed as Iron Man (video games don't do LG phone tie-in commercials, for example), but I think they both did a respective amount of solid marketing for their target audiences.

But here's where the similarities end.

Differences

What amazes me the most is the difference in income. GTA IV took in over $300 million dollars on DAY ONE. Now, granted, if we do a bit of math here, we can see that over the entire weekend, if we assume about $10 for a movie ticket, somewhere between 8 and 10 million folks saw Iron Man, while only about 4 million people bought GTA IV. So, you're saying "Well, yeah, video games are expensive. That's because they cost so much to make, right?" Wrong. Look at that statistic from the GTA IV review. The game was one of the "most expensive to develop" in all-time, and it only cost $100 million dollars to make. I'm not sure what the actual budget of Iron Man was (probably less than $100 million? Then again, the marketing budget alone was $50 - $75 million), but I think it's safe to assume that after making $500 million in revenues in the first week alone, GTA IV definitely made a tidy profit for Rockstar and Take Two.  

Why the pundits were wrong

First off, the pundits weren't wrong about GTA IV. In fact, it blew even the highest estimates away. There were 'whispers in the dark', so to speak, about breaking $500 million in week one, but most people thought that was crazy talk. But, it happened. And I'm sure when we get next week's numbers, we'll tack another $100 million or so onto that number. However, they were wrong about Iron Man. Even though people bought GTA IV, the SAME TARGET AUDIENCE still went to see Iron Man. I did both, for example. 

The pundits were wrong because they like to think that there's a finite amount of money in the world to be spent. It makes the movie execs feel good at night when a crap-tastic movie flops at the box office. Don't blame the writing, acting, or directing, oh no, it's the ECONOMY. As we can clearly see, even in a "recession", when movie income is down by tens of  percents over the previous year, if it's good, people will buy it.

And, on a final note, I'm not trying to take anything away from Iron Man, it's a great movie, and I loved it, but as far as "entertainment", GTA IV delivers in spades in ways a movie (to me) never will, and that's why I think we're going to start seeing more and more video games outperform the movie industry in the decades to come.

Yes, I paid for music on the internet. I bought a song on amazon for $.99. I couldn't find it on seeqpod, altavista mp3 search, "index of" in google, or torrent. So I bought it.

It's the second song I've ever bought. My first was on DI.fm's store. It was nada - numbers. Good song. The one I just got is: Tripswitch -Silver (ott remix). Sure, I could have downloaded cardamar's free 3 hour chillout mix that had this song at the end of it. I could have taken audacity and cut the song out. 

But.. for one dollar, I got the song in a split second. Cokes cost more than that from a damn vending machine. And since bash.org will probably never take quotes I send them, here's one between me and my roommate when I was bitching about my computer lagging (I think the fan on the vid card is not working):

"I'm dropping more frames than Michael J. Fox at an eyeglass store"

Too soon? Probably.

Hey guys, it's nice to hear from everyone. I've decided to entitle my Post "The Sox" because I went to my first RedSox game of the year on Monday. We smoked the Rangers, and I generally had a good time. Nothing beats watching the Sox play at Fenway in 65 degree weather, enjoying a few refreshing beers, and then watching the Boston Marathon and wishing I had run it again.

Link to pictures I refuse to pay for!

Anyways, Life is generally hectic for me right now, and I am exactly 3 finals, 2 papers, and 1 presentation away from graduation. I'll be coming home for a month after graduation, so I hope to see most of you then. I'll also be taking a class at Pitt to pass the time away, Math 557: Real Analysis, and possibly a second class if I find something that catches my eye. If any of you Pittsburg dwellers happen to be taking classes in June, let me know. Perhaps we can meet up and toss the old football and/or frisbee around after class.

 Keep the posts coming.

Hello to all of you. I miss you, and stuff.

Things are super busy at GT right now, so I haven't had much time for anything fun. Heck, I haven't touched TF2 in a few weeks. It makes me sad.

So here's something that struck me. How the hell were the Democrats able to bitch about the popular vote vs. delegates in the last few elections when their own damn primaries allow people in their party to just decide who gets in (I'm talking superdelegates). I mean.. wow.

Also, I'm going to be in lawrence on the 4th or 5th ish. 

Hello to all again. I'm still alive. Grad school is chugging along nicely. More details in a later post when I'm not supposed to be doing thesis work...

The title is as such b/c I've been watching a lot of Starcraft 2 videos recently. You know... for about the 20th time. 

I'm nearly over some dehydration I got (it was hot and we were on tarmac the whole time... even though I drank 3 liters o' water) while helping out the AIAA Design Build Fly competition this weekend where my fiance's team (of which I assisted) took 15th out of 61 teams. They were also one of only 13 teams to actually complete the two different missions set out. Their report score was 9th out of the 61 submitted. With that now over we've got more wedding planning to get back to. Ugh... Vegas would make life easy. However, the one thing that is totally good to go (besides the date) is the honeymoon at St. Lucia. Yeah, it's in the Caribbean. Yeah, it's an all inclusive resort with free alcohol all the time. Am I gonna be blitzed while trying to scuba? You bet!!

The biggest news besides that is I get to teach a class next semester! Yours truly will be instructing freshman/sophomores on Numerical Methods / Matrix Operations / Fortran. The class is AE227.

I'll now leave you with the most badass picture ever. This was Oklahoma State's plane at the DBF competition. It caught fire thanks to overheating some NiMH batteries, which I've never seen set fire to anything. I've seen them melt and burst, just never any fire. While competition crashes are cool since it's inherent to men that explosions are awesome, it's pretty sad since this plane had a lot of blood, sweat, and tears behind it, as all DBF entries do. 

:EDIT: Picture credits should go to whoever runs the site www.terrabreak.org. It's the "civilian" Design Build Fly site that provides cool photos and a compendium information. So if it anyone asks or is curious, that's where it's from. No personal credit was given, nor any declaration of creative commons. :EDIT: 

 -Michael

P.S. My e-mail is michael.garruda@gmail.com 

Ok so, it's been a long time since this thing has existed, it's nice to have it back, and it's also good to hear from Riley for the 1st time in almost 2 full years.  I assume, most all of you know about the wreck I think, but I had surgery again in March, during which they accidently broke my ankel, which has been lovely.  Although, despite that, everything came out fine, I've just been stuck in an annoying as hell cast for the past 4 weeks, I get in cut off on May 6th thank God.  Also I talked to my neck doctor last week, I needed to make sure I could still ride coasters after breaking my neck, his response was "probably not a good idea, it's a high risk thing, however, you're not at any greater risk now than you ever were before your neck was broken" so the long and short of it is, I'm free to do whatever the hell I want, once I can walk again, which I haven't really done in over a year.  I'm a year behind in college, which means I have to come back and be a super senior next year, shit happens I guess, but on a bright note I got a house here in Atchison, I'll be in Lawrence almost every weekend, and will only be taking roughly 10-12 hours a semester next year.  This summer I'm taking classes up in Atchison, I might as well considering my house lease starts in May.  I'm taking "the Chemistry of Beer and Wine" this summer, which is this, we go to lab for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, for a month, brew beer and make wine, and taste test it...and get 4 credits for it, should be enjoyable.  I also had a g/f (yes me, I had a g/f) for about 5 months this last year till she cheated on me and all that fun stuff, go figure there.  Other than that, we're making it a goal to try and get to @ least 3 Royals games a month this summer, so if any of yall are around the KC area and want in let me know.

McLuckie

Hey everyone,

Well, I know it's been a while since the Tempest was around, but I feel like maybe it's time that we got it back up and running again. I know there's a lot of crazy stuff going on in everyone's lives, and also know that there are plenty of people out here who would love to hear about it. So, I'll be sending everyone usernames and passwords here shortly...feel free to start posting!

I'll see if I can't dig up some of the previous articles from the last version, but I don't know if I'll be able to import them or not, since this is a totally different software platform.

Looking forward to everyone's first posts,

Riley