For those that don’t know, Messy and I are expecting our first child in May. Today we went to have an ultrasound done, and it was the one during which we were able to find out the gender. Below is one of the pictures from the ultrasound. If you look at my sidebar, there’s a link under “Cool Sites” to My Flickr Photos, where you can find the rest of these pictures.
edit: Looks like my flickr badge didn’t survive the move.
Google Safe Browsing for Firefox is an extension to firefox that attempts to help you avoid phishing sites, which are not only becoming more common by the day, but also tend to really surge around the holidays. I’ve been surfing with this installed for a couple of days now, and it doesn’t appear to have done a single thing for me. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, but rather that my own surfing habits don’t seem to lead me to dangerous sites in the first place. That isn’t surprising to me, really. Perhaps I’ll have to install it on a test machine (I have one set up for work that just gets reimaged on a regular basis) and intentionally surf to some questionable sites to see what it does. It’ll be interesting, at least.
I watched The Aviator today. I really liked it. I’ve got all sorts of things to say about it, but I want to say right now that I love Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony. I’m just getting into classical music, and this is one I remember hearing as a kid, and I LOVE it. It’s so… fun to listen to. It’s one of a few pieces I’ve found that seems to tempt my brain into trying to deconstruct it as I listen to it, so I’m constantly trying to pick the different instruments and movements out of it while I listen, and if a song can involve me like that, I love it. Note: The links below were all manually entered by me, and point to either imdb.com or wikipedia.org so any who don’t know who these people are can get a little more information about them, or at least more information about what they’ve done with their lives. I’m not compensated by either imdb or wikipedia for those links, they’re just handy sources of information accurate and thorough enough for the causal oberserver.
Back to the movie though. Okay, the world must really be coming to an end because this is the 2nd movie I’m going to have to just bite the bullet and say, “Leonardo DiCaprio did a really good job.” The first was Catch Me if you Can. I’ve hated his acting for SO long that it’s like cutting off an appendage saying I liked it. I really liked Scorsese’s directing, and the art directing (I’m not sure who did that) was amazing as well. Some of the camera angles and pans during the flying scenes really made my brain have to check which direction was up. DiCaprio did a great job of playing someone who has multiple mental illnesses. Cate Blanchett was positively, gut-wrenchingly obnoxious as Katherine Hepburn, but for all I know that’s what Hepburn was like. She acted well, and she acted well across from DiCaprio, as did Beckinsale which could be considered surprising after previous movies like Van Helsing, but for that one, I blame the script itself.
If anything, the movie made me want to know more about Howard Hughes, which was perhaps the intent. I’ll probably spend some of the time I have over the next couple of weeks while not in classes, reading about Hughes.
I saw the following on slashdot today:
Slashdot | Steam Hybrid Car from BMW
It links to an article that discusses more details, but the point of everything is that BMW is testing a steam/combustion hybrid engine that will increase the efficiency of the internal combustion energy by taking up to 80% of the energy that is lost as heat through the exhaust system, and using it to convert water to steam that will course through a steam engine and assist the combustion engine in turning the crankshaft. This is, essentially, a free (in terms of energy economy) addition to the amount of power available to turn the crankshaft and, subsequently the wheels. Because there’s more power available to do it, the combustion engine will not have to work as hard, reducing its fuel consumption. The numbers they are giving say that the fuel consumption is reduced by as much as 15%. I know to many of us, 15% is only a big deal when it’s being taken away from us, but hey, consider it this way: The gas companies will be able to take 15% less money from you!
Another cool thing about it is that it can be installed, potentially, in all existing BMW models, meaning you won’t have to get a new car to take advantage of the environmentally friendly hybridization. No word yet on how close to the cost of the new car the installation will be, but hopefully it will be less than… 15% to use one of their numbers.
Never, Never, Never leave a block of white cheese sitting on your table, for any reason. If you do, you just might end up like these people. I mean… holy queso! From the article:
in an unusual case of mistaken identity, a woman who thought a block of white cheese was cocaine is charged with trying to hire a hit man to rob and kill four men. The woman also was mistaken about the hit man. He turned out to be an undercover police officer.
Boy am I glad I’ve never invited shady friends over while airing out my cheese…
Sucks to be the coke addict, though… happening to hire an undercover cop to do the hit…
