Ok, Explain This......

From Yahoo.com (emphasis mine):

High prices for oil and natural gas propelled Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC to their best quarterly results ever on Thursday, with Exxon becoming the first U.S. company ever to ring up quarterly sales of $100 billion.

Ok, so Hurricane Katrina cause a shortage of oil and a increase in prices yet Exxon Mobile and Shell Oil bring in record profits? Something is bad wrong here or am I missing something?

Slacking in my blogging.

So I haven't been blooging like normal lately. I have been looking at redesigning the site, migrating over to Movable Type from Blogger and learning about podcasting.

Anyway if anyone has suggestions please drop them my way.

On that note I will leave you with a link to the Oracle of Bacon website at the University of Virginia. Ever try to play that 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon? Some dude wrote a program that uses IMDB.com to do it for you. Nice time waster.

Yikes.....

Hurricane Wilma, which is my great grandmothers name, is looking to be the next rival to Katrina. News 2's weather blog is saying that this is the lowest pressure reading for a Hurricane ever reported at 882mb (Katrina was 902mb and Rita was 897mb).

I really hope this hurricane does not turn out to be as bad as either Rita or Katrina. This picture from the Weather Channel makes it look as if South Florida and maybe the Eastern Seaboard of US is going to be in for a long week next week.


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Milestone: this is my 300th post to my blog woo hoo.

Vandy-Georgia and those Damn Reply refs.

Yesterday Vanderbilt looked good against Number 5 Georgia, despite the score.

So in the forth quarter the Replay Refs totally blew a call. Georgia's QB D.J Shockley threw a pass to Bryan McClendon for a 17 yard touchdown putting the Bulldogs ahead 34-17. The play got reviewed and was ruled to touchdown. My dad, who was watching the game on ESPN2, called me and said that the replay showed the ball hitting the ground. He said that the ESPN people tried to call up to the reply booth to tell then they didn't see all the angles before making the call. The announcers on the TV where saying that the call changed to momentum of the game At that point they crowd was taken out of the game and people started to leave.

Would Vanderbilt have won if the reception was called back? Probably not but maybe we could have held them to a field goal and it would have been closer. So to me the Replay experiment is not working or they need to set up the rules like the NFL.

Ok well this next week the Commodores ate in a must win situation with South Carolina. If they do not win there Bowl chances are officially done if the MTSU loss doesn't come back to haunt us.

Link the only article I could find mentioning the replay call. And even it small.



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We got hosed tommy. We got hosed

Vandy just lost 34-17 to Georgia. But there was a blown call. Ill have more later.
Sent via My Blackberry 6230 handheld

Star Wars Episode III Script

Weather or not you liked or disliked the latest installment Star Wars franchise, this link will be a fun read. It a parody script done by Ron Hilton. Extremely Funny. This gives away alot if you have not seen the movie.


http://ter.air0day.com/print.php?script=revengeofthesith

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Yom Kippur..

Today is the Jewish Holy day, Yom Kippur or Day of Atonment:

Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of repentance, considered to be the holiest
and most solemn day of the year. Its central theme is atonement and
reconciliation. Eating, drinking, washing, cosmetics, wearing leather shoes, and
conjugal relations are prohibited (Mishnah tractate Yoma 8:1).
Fasting - total abstention from all food and drink - begins a bit before sundown
(called "tosefet Yom Kippur", the "addition" of fasting a bit of the previous
day is required by Jewish law), and ends after nightfall the following
day. Contrary to popular belief, Yom Kippur is not a sad day. Sephardic Jews
(Jews of Spanish, Portuguese and North African descent) refer to this holiday as
"the White Fast". Consequently, many Jews have the custom of wearing only white
clothing on this day, to symbolize their "white" purity from sin, akin to
angels.

Learn more at Wikipedia.org

Time to change

Want to change political affiliations? Here's how. (Flash animation)

Found via Tompaine.com


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No Sleep till.......

SO I'm wide awake ant 330 AM. It's kinda weird for me to be up this early.

I'm checking a site a coworker of mine brought to my attention a few days ago. Its www.angryalien.com. They do Flash animations of movies in 30 seconds as done by bunnies. The Pulp Fiction and the Jaws one are the best.

Speaking of Pulp Fiction, if your a fan of that movie and Star Wars you must see the Pulp Phantom series. It's a cross of the two and really funny.

Also if you're a Kevin Smith fan you may like the Trooper Clerks parody. Its hosted over at Atom Films which has some really great stuff.

Any way have fun watching.

LSU - Vandy -- Live blogging.

LSU just scored to make it 27-6 LSU. Looks like we will lose but not with out a fight. Our defence looked great. Look out UT.
Sent via My Blackberry 6230 handheld

LSU-Vandy game -- live blogging

LSU just scored on a 5 play 80 yard drive. There is so much purple here is amazing. There is more purple here than UT orange when Tennessee comes to town. There fans are soo loud. I never heard this stadium this loud.

Sent via My Blackberry 6230 handheld

God did What??

Unfuckingblievable. (From AFP via Yahoo):

US President George W. Bush allegedly said God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, a new BBC documentary will reveal, according to details.
Bush made the claim when he met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and then foreign minister Nabil Shaath in June 2003, the ministers told the documentary series to be broadcast in Britain later this month.

(snip)

"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in
Afghanistan'"
"And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the
tyranny in Iraq...' And I did.''

Hmm.....It seem when God talks to people strange things happen. For example, Deanna Laney of just outside of Dallas, Texas (coincidence?) told the court that God told her to smash her son head with rocks.

You hear stories like this all the time and when someone says "God told me", I get very very suspicious that that person is having serious delusions. I know some people say that God told them to do good things and that some people are just crazy. Well God doesn't talk to the people wo do good either. They believe something and and are able to decide, on there own, what should be done. Maybe those people wan to say it to bring attention to themselves. So if you such a good peron why do you have to wait for god to tell you to do something? Why not do it on you own and see how God reacts? I think if God is a good god he would have more things to do that be a voice in you head telling you what to do. Plus we dont need any more Crusades or Spanish Inquisitions.

Voices in you head? Insn't that a symptom of schizophrenia?

UPDATE: The White House deny's this. I would not be suprised since he did call the Iraq War a crusade by accident. I guess we need a transcript, audio, or video of him saying that to be sure.

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Success...

I am so proud of myself. I installed a new hard drive in to my computer all by myself. I figured I would have problems since it was my main hard drive that failed but I didn't. Once I figured out how to get my computer to boot form the CD, things went well. I bought a 120GB Western Digital hard drive for right ar 100 bucks which boosted my storage from my prior capacity. I had bought this computer form a friend and it had two 10GB hard drive and I had filled one almost all the way up.

So now all that left is to extract data form the old busted hard drive.

Yikes!!!!

Last night I was awoken by a odd sound in my bedroom. It was a weird 2 toned clicking sound. After some investigation I realized it was coming from my computer. My hard drive had failed. The clicking sound make me thing that the drive motor failed.

So tonight I guess I will be installing a new hard drive,. which i have never done before, and reinstalling Windows XP and that damn 3 hour Service Pack 2 Download.

Wish me luck. If you have any suggestions feel free to drop them my way.

Frogs, HIV and the Wonders of Science.

I work at Vanderbilt in the research sector. Every day I either see or hear of amazing thing being done. Today I read in the in house publication, The Reporter, an article that bring up once such example of amazing discovery.

Dr. Louise A. Rollins-Smith, Ph.D., associate professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Vanderbilt got a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the decline of a tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas, pictured) which are in decline in Central America and California. "Amphibian skin has long been favored in folklore for its medicinal properties … Frogs are a rich source of potentially useful molecules that might work against human pathogens", says Dr Rollins-Smith.

Frog skin contains glands that, in response to skin injury or alarm, release fluids with that protect the animal from possible infection by pathogens such as viruses. Dr. Rollins-Smith happened to mention this to colleague, Derya Unutmaz, M.D, in a hallway chat who happened to have a lab next door to hers and they thought they would see if the peptides might have affect on virusethatht infechumansms. Dr. Unutmaz focus is the HIV virus.

HIV is spread throughout the body by entering a dendritic cell. A dentritic cell is a immune system cell that is located in tissues that interact with outside environment and interacts with the T-helper cell. The virus is attracted to the receptors outside the T-helper cell and transmission occurses. The HIV virus then kills these T-Cells therefore weakening the immune system.

Dr. Unutmaz and Dr. Rollins-Smith have found that peptides contained in the fluids of Agalychnis callidryas are able to kill the HIV virus in the dendritic cells as they search for T-cells. This discovery could lead to creation of small molecules that target the HIV virus and may be used in a possible vaccine.

Isn't science amazing?

Photo Credit Douglas Woodhams

For More HIV and AIDS related material:
KnowHIVAIDS.org
Vanderbilts HIV Vaccine Program
Nashville Cares
Get Tested!!!!

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Ahh .. The power of Legos.

Over at Wonderdawg there is a post about Legos again. He has a link to a site with Bible stories told with Legos. In keeping with that I have to post this (QT 3.2mb). It the Camelot Song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail done with Legos. Classic. It on the Special Edition 2 DVD set of the movie.

http://www.jengajam.com/r/Lego-Monty-Python

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How Groovy..

I so want a beard like this guy. This is a German contestant, Willi Chevalier, in the category partial beard, freestyle, poses in Berlin, during the World Beard and Moustache Championships. The pictures ón this site remind me of the figures in the old Stratego game.

Picture Credit: Marcus Brandt AFP

A Crushing Blow....

Last night I, along with approximately 37, 000 other fans, watched what may be the end of Vanderbilt's bowl chances. The now 4-1 Commodores had a chance at victory but poor end of the game clock management and a blocked kick brought Vanderbilt its first loss of the season.

Now in a way I am happy because I am an MTSU graduate but my sadness of seeing Vanderbilt's season possibly end over takes that.

How is this the end of Vanderbilt's season? Being a fans of Vanderbilt I used to seeing thing fall apart but on a game by game basis. But looking in to the future schedule Vanderbilt will most likely lose the next two games against LSU (#4) and Georgia (#6) making them 4-3. There is a chance that Vandy could beat South Carolina but they will not beat Florida at The Swamp or Tennessee at Neyland. And unless something happens crazy Vandy should beat Kentucky. So if all goes well Vandy will be 6-5 if they pull one off against the Gamecocks ( I so wanted to type that). I think that the MTSU loss will haunt them even if they do beat South Carolina and possibly be the one game that keeps them out of a bowl. If they lose to South Carolina they can forget it. But with all the big upsets yesterday(Alabama trouncing Florida, Michigan beating Michigan State in Overtime, Maryland beating Virgina, Penn State beating Minnesota and Nebraska beating Iowa State 2OT) this season could take a big change. But well shall see.


Articles on VU-MTSU Game:
VUcommodores.com
Go Blue Raiders.com
Vandy Sports.com
Tennessean.com
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Picture credits: Top from Tennessean.com Bottom from VUCommodores.com

The Wonders of Lego's

I found this Lego picture at Wonderdawg. Its a Lego representation of M.C Esher's Relativity drawing (see below). It never ceases to amaze me how creative and imaginative people can be. I loved playing with Legos when I was a kid but all I built was the pre designed sets, buildings, car, planes. And bad ones at that.



Links:

Lego's as other Famous Art
More on MC Escher
More Drawings by MC Escher (posters ect.)

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