I was just checking up on the We The Robots comic I like to read, when I saw Chris Harding's new post about his friend Scott Emmons' new rhyme-a-day blog, The Daily Rhyme.
I love this guy's writing!
He is a rhyme genius!
He writes about everything from breaking news poletics to Haagen Dazs with eloquent, clever, and hilarious rhyme.
If you haven't already, check it out!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
What's with the Crows?
After a long and hard brainstorming session to come up with a name for my new blog, I decided on "What's with the Crows?".
I was thinking of interesting titles that describe certain characteristics of Romania, and one major characteristic is the lack of any wildlife besides crows.
I guess the crows ate everything else, including deer, because that is the only possible explanation to why there is nothing else here. Not even chipmunks. It's desolate, except for the crows, and the occasional moth that managed to elude them.
But don't go thinking this blog is about crows.
No, it's about life and adventures fixing up a 40 year old apartment.
It's about malls and shops that charge $150 US for Nike shoes.
It's about people, and how spoiled they are.
And it's about my family and I, by which I mean my mom and I, living with American minds in Romania.
What's with the Crows?
I was thinking of interesting titles that describe certain characteristics of Romania, and one major characteristic is the lack of any wildlife besides crows.
I guess the crows ate everything else, including deer, because that is the only possible explanation to why there is nothing else here. Not even chipmunks. It's desolate, except for the crows, and the occasional moth that managed to elude them.
But don't go thinking this blog is about crows.
No, it's about life and adventures fixing up a 40 year old apartment.
It's about malls and shops that charge $150 US for Nike shoes.
It's about people, and how spoiled they are.
And it's about my family and I, by which I mean my mom and I, living with American minds in Romania.
What's with the Crows?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Romania Called
First off, I am so sorry for not having updated this blog in an eternity.
But secondly, I have a note excusing me from the missed updates.
The note reads:
"Dear whomever it may concern,
Paul has moved to Romania.
Sincerely,
Paul's mom"
Yes, I have indeed moved to Romania, which is far from wherever you are, I guarantee it.
So this blog post is just to excuse myself for the dead time, and to promise good things to come.
Starting with my new blog about life in Romania, which I will have up and running by the end of today, and to which I will post a link.
It will document my time here, in hopes that if I write continuously, without ever reading over my stuff, I might gather enough material over 2 years to turn into something useful, like money.
I also would like very much to improve my writing, so you should read every single boring post on the new blog, with the goal of seeing if I get better or worse at writing as time goes on.
That's about it, but there will be more!
Paul
But secondly, I have a note excusing me from the missed updates.
The note reads:
"Dear whomever it may concern,
Paul has moved to Romania.
Sincerely,
Paul's mom"
Yes, I have indeed moved to Romania, which is far from wherever you are, I guarantee it.
So this blog post is just to excuse myself for the dead time, and to promise good things to come.
Starting with my new blog about life in Romania, which I will have up and running by the end of today, and to which I will post a link.
It will document my time here, in hopes that if I write continuously, without ever reading over my stuff, I might gather enough material over 2 years to turn into something useful, like money.
I also would like very much to improve my writing, so you should read every single boring post on the new blog, with the goal of seeing if I get better or worse at writing as time goes on.
That's about it, but there will be more!
Paul
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Now I sEee
When I first heard about the ultra-hyped Eee PC from ASUS, I couldn't understand why people would want a laptop of such peculiar size. Not small enough for your pocket, yet too small to house truly serious components under the hood. But for the past couple of days, as I've been working hard on fixing inconsistencies in my blog posts that have arrisen while mobile blogging, I think I can now see the appeal of the Eee. I keep trying to find workarounds to get my iPhone to act a bit more like a computer, with blogging being just one example, but it's been too time consuming for steady posts even this long to be practical. So now I realize how useful it would be to have a UMPC like the Eee to take care of things on the road that a phone can't, without having to wait until you get home to your desktop. Thus, I started to research the Eee to learn more about it, when I realized the true beauty of the machine: the around $600 price tag. This is truly amazing, as it seems to be the best UMPC available now, for almost $1000 less than others like the smaller-screened models from Samsung or OQO. I read that it comes preinstalled with Linux, but that it is easy to exchange it with Windows XP if you have a copy of it. I personally would keep Linux on the system because I've always been keen to learn the Linux OS in general, as well as several open-source programs like Blender and the Python programming language. Also, installing Windows on it reduces its performance, while Lunux is said to run smoother. Sadly, it is much too small to include a CD-ROM drive, so any software you want to install will have to be saved on a flash drive for the Eee. Size wise, I read that it is only a bit larger than a DVD case, and weighs in at around 2 pounds, which is the real reason to get one. I am perfecly happy with the power of my Precision laptop, but I'm not too keen on lugging around a 10 lb machine, so the only option for mobile productivity is a UMPC. As I've seen, there are a couple different models of Eee's. The 700 model has a very small 7 inch screen, while the next step, the 900 series is equipped with an improved 8.9 inch screen, and a couple different component options. The 900 series includes the 900 and 901, the main difference being the processor, which I'll discuss later on. Last, there has just been a Japanese launch for the next laptop, the 1000, which again ups the screen size to 10 inches, which was released at COMPUTEX Taipei on June 3 this year. Extremely mobile devices seem to be a growing trend, which will be helped greatly by the introduction of ULP (ultra low power) Geforce graphics cards from Nvidia later this year, which will be introduced in several high-end cell phones by next year, and the more powerful Atom mobile processors from Intel. These mobile CPU's and GPU's will certainly make a splash in the market, with an Atom processor already used in the new Eee 901. This is the first model that will incorporate an Atom, specifically the 1.6 GHz version, which is quite an improvement over the previous 900 MHz Intel Celeron used in every version before the 901. Another impressive trait that all the models share, is the upgradeability of the RAM to up to 2 GB. Oh, and did I mention the solid state drive? I think the most incredible thing about the price of the Eee is how ASUS can afford to include up to a 20 GB SSD drive in this thing while keeping the price as low as it is. Just another reason this is really a marvel.
If I ever get an Eee, I'll be sure to write some in depth specs in a review, but until then, I'll leave you thinking about how your life would be different if you could do all your computery stuff on the road. Anywhere.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Here's What Happened...
Alright, so I just worked for a total of about 5 hours figuring out how to post pictures and caption text as together as possible when mobile blogging. To explain what I am doing here to post these pictures and text using my iPhone, it is all being done through emails. I modified a setting on my blogger account to allow emails sent to my blog to be automatically published, and while that sounds great in theory, it turns out that blogger doesn't want to properly display attached images within the text. So I had to separate every piece of text from each image and post them individually, which is why they look like separate posts. In fact, every text piece goes with the image above it.
I'll see if there is any way to get this stuff sorted out, but I'll keep blogging like this until I do.
The joy of mobile blogging!
When we first arrived at John's Pass, we saw that we'd stumbled upon a little festival going on, called the "Pirate Days". This was interesting because judging by some extremely elaborate costumes, this festival was the one (and only) thing the locals in St. Pete Beach had to look forward to this year. However, I didn't really manage to get any pictures of the Halloween style clothes the people were wearing due to my fear that the daggers and revolvers they were carrying were real.
We found these sculpted frogs in a store on the strip which was full to overflowing with colorful sculptures and other beautiful constructions. But these frogs really stuck out because of the dynamic poses and the quality of the sculpting (they are made from baked clay) and the painting, which showed some really nice gradients.
Now this is truly unique!
This "kinetic sculpture" is powered by a weight hung on the thin string wound around the right-most wheel. The weight very slowly is pulled down by gravity, causing the wheel on the right to spin. That wheel in turn is connected to the two clawish arms and the sunny wheel by a complex system of pullies which raise and lower the arms while spinning the wheels.The complexity of this sculpture is truly remarkable, and my favorite piece of the trip!
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