I just keep adding to my collection of Star Trek starship models. This one is the Enterprise from the latest movie. Acutally, it IS the latest movie.
Bestbuy had a collector’s edition blu-ray. I couldn’t resist. It’s actually pretty nice for something that came free with a movie. Now I get to watch Star Trek in 1080p glory as many times as I want 
And yet another re-launch post. I finally feel like posting again and promoting my own narcissism. Figured I might as well gets some updates in before I go back to school. Seeing that the craziness of first year and camping has simmered from the roaring boil it used to be, they’ll be less chronicling our epic university days. Also less of me trying to be my own Engadget. They’ll be much more of me just talking about whatever the fuck I want. Oh yeah, don’t forget to pimp my blog to others 
And yet another Star Trek post because I know how much everyone likes them. What we have here is the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E; the 6th Federation ship to bear the name Enterprise.
Actually, this is just a model. It took months of work and planning to design and engineer the lighting system. Blood and sweat went into painting all the details and the “Aztec” pattern on the hull.
Nah, I’m joshing again. This kit is actually made by Bandai. They are known for making Gundam models. This kit is pretty sweet for three reasons. First, the model employs snap-together pieces. The pieces snaps together firmly without the use of cement. They snap together so firmly that it is really hard to break the pieces apart if you make a mistake.
Next, the pieces are pre-painted. The detail is quite accurate. This saves said sweat and blood. It’d probably take months to get the hull details and Aztec pattern with paint and decals. These two factors make assembly of this model very quick. I was able to do this a few hours, and I’ve never put a model together.
Finally, the best part is that the model comes with a lighting system. The lights could be a bit brighter, but this model really looks nice in a dimly lit room. The lighting system was easy to put together since there was no soldering required. There are light diffusers inside the model to spread the light more evenly. I wish I could get better pictures of the models light systems, but my camera is crap for low light situations.
I know I’m probably gonna get a bunch of cheap shots in the comments section, but this model gives my inner geek a warm fuzzy feeling.
Was part of the New Xbox Experience (NXE) supposed to be a Red Ring of Death? Cuz, there is nothing new about those. I got one during the upgrade process. I thought my Xbox was fubared, but it continued with the update after a restart. My 360 died about 2 weeks after the update. 
After that unpleasantness, I got to mess around with the NXE. I made a new avatar. The choices are a little limited since you cannot change the colour of various items. For example, the T-shirt only comes in green.
Next, I looked around the system a bit. Everything loaded faster than the original 360 dashboard, and everything is easier to find. Also, everything is much prettier. It’s pretty sweet that looking at your friends list show all your friend’s avatars chilling. Another nice feature is that you have full access to all the dashboard item when you hit the guide button in game so you can change system options without exiting your game or go straight to a video instead of going to the video via the dashboard.
Overall, I’m very impressed with the new dashboard. I can only hope that Microsoft can keep up this pace of innovation for future update. Oh yeah, fewer RRoD’s (i.e. none) would be nice.
I know this post is late. I started before exam, but I never finished it. Just be happy there are updates. I’m not even gonna bother with a round-about witty introduction to this review. I’m just gonna get to the point. Quantum of Solace was major disappointment, especially with the success of Casino Royale. The plot is confusing to say the least and just doesn’t flow well. I’d recommend watching Casino Royale before watching this to freshen up your memory as it takes place RIGHT after Casino Royale. The movie has great action sequences as you would expect from a Bond movie. I kinda miss the cheesier Bond films with all the cool gadgets. As if this movie wasn’t disappointing enough, the next one will be continuing the storyline.
I saw Quantum of Solace this weekend. I was horribly disappointed with it especially considering the momentum they built up with Casino Royale. Anyway, more on that in another post. I however was ecstatic about the trailer for the new Star Trek movie coming out next May. The trailer didn’t show much about the movie, but there was a lot of action, like you’d expect from a trailer. I got to see the updated interior and the exterior of the Enterprise.
The interior definitely looks more modern almost to the point of looking clinical. I’m not too sure about the updated exterior. The new scaling of the different parts makes the ship look less streamlined. Hopefully the new younger actors will have chemistry that can match the old crew.
I wonder if Sylar/Spock can do the Vulcan salute with his left hand. After the disappointment of Star Trek Nemesis, I can only hope that J.J. Abrams will some new life into the franchise. For hardcore trekkers, you can find a better pic of the Enterprise here (I have my doubts that many come here).
“I’ve given into Engadget’s hype on these machines. Now that I have a capable desktop I’m thinking about slimming down my laptop.
My D810 is more than capable for today’s tasks even with it’s old 1.73 GHz Pentium M. It’s served me well for 3 years. At the time I bought it, it was more of a desktop replacement, but now I’m mostly using my laptop for only web browsing and I want something lighter and more portable.
The wind is portable, stylish, and even cute. I could see elementary girls really digging the pink version. It’s got Intel’s Atom processor clocked at 1.6 GHz. The Atom was designed for low power consumption while providing the x86 instruction set. These processors really got hyped, again by engadget. I think everyone was expecting Intel to do what they did with the Pentium M again, lower power consumption while maintaining current-gen performance. Intel got the the power thing down, but the performance is quite a bit slower. Clock-for-clock the Atom is about half as fast as a Pentium M. So the wind should be like using my current laptop in power-save mode (where is clocks down to 800 MHz) which isn’t bad for surfing the internet.
Other than the processor and the GPU, the wind actually has more features than my D810. It’s got bluetooth, 4-in-1 card reader, 80 GB HDD, built-in mic and webcam, and a turbo button (overclocks the processor to 1.9 GHz when plugged in). My D810 has a smart card reader I’ve never used. Damn business computers.
I can’t wait to get one of these. I just have to find a way to turn my D810 into green.”
That’s what I wrote about 2 months ago. Being 2 months wiser now, I’ve seen how much of a debacle the launch was. Right off the bat, there were 3 delays which added up to a month. Because of a fire at LG’s battery factory, the system only shipped with 3-cell batteries instead of 6-cells. The price went up by $20 for the 3-cell Winds and the 6-cell, which came after another month of delay, cost $50 more than the original price. The final nail in the coffin was that they switched from the Synaptic touchpad to the cheaper Sentelic which doesn’t have “slide your finger to scroll” functionality. I guess I’ll have to wait for another product. The common motif with these netbooks is over promising and under delivering. Just search “netbook” on engadget and you’ll see what I mean.
I know I’m late on this (mostly has to do with the backlight dying on my laptop), but I just had to say something on this. Microsoft had its press conference on Monday. It was fairly mundane. Just showing off most of the games we knew coming. Fallout 3, Gears of Wars 2, and Resident Evil were shown. They showed off the new dashboard Xbox owners will be using in fall. Finally found out what LIPS was, a karaoke game where you can sing tracks from your MP3 player.
Overall the conference could be described as expected, but damn, they finished big with a bombshell. Final Fantasy XIII is coming to Xbox 360. The long time Playstation exclusive is now multiplatform. That’s a major burn to the PS3, and now I get to play FFXIII .
If anyone can remember, back in first year, I was gonna do a satirical rap on the people I hung out with. We even came up with a moniker for me, Fiddy Percent. Writing the lyrics was the easy part. I was writing them when I should have been studying for midterms. Oh well, you only live once. Pretty much after writing the lyrics, the project was plagued with set backs. First of all, our usual venue for these raps were at poker nights, but after the rap was written, we didn’t have many poker nights. Second of all, I can’t rap despite being black. After a few attempted recordings, I realized I would need a voice modulator to sound anything like 50 Cent. And then, because of the delays, the lyrics weren’t as relevant after a while, and they required a rewrite. I know this is uber late, and not the same as a rap, but I’m releasing the lyrics. Set your time machines for first year and prepare for a laugh (or maybe just a chuckle or further yet, a burst of rage). I present you In the Central Academic Building (C.A.B.).
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go Mikey
It’s your birthday
We gonna party
Like it’s you birthday
We gonna chug Molson’s
‘Cause it’s your birthday
And we don’t really care if March first is not your birthday
You can find me in the CAB
Chillin’ with the geers
Look, we got some scientists who think they have it hard
I’m kicking ass in calc
I ain’t into takin’ arts
And it wouldn’t be a day without a burn on Jas
You can find me in the CAB
Chillin’ with the geers
Look, we got some scientists who think they have it hard
I’m kicking ass in calc
I ain’t into takin’ arts
And it wouldn’t be a day without a burn on Jas
When I pull out up front, I think who the fuck is Kendall?
When Mike hits the bar, one beer before he’s over
He came to get hammered, but got hammered by Duke
In Dead or Alive, Mike thinks he’s the shit
Thinks he’s leet, but lost to a newb.
Got kicked down
Beaten up
While Mark owned it up
If you watch Jane play, you’ll mistake her for a gamer or geek
Cause she played DOA, and now she speaking in leet
David, I hope you know, communism ain’t hot
And like me, you know Hungarian he’s not
I give you best wishes
‘Cause you gonna need it
If you wanna get laid before the big 2-0
I guess you’re fully focused now
Got teh nubs on your side
They’ll get you a date with the first chick they find
Oh yeah
Purple is fair
Green is fine
But they’ve got no business on somebody’s hair
You can find me in the CAB
Chillin’ with the geers
Look, we got some scientists who think they have it hard
I’m kicking ass in calc
I ain’t into takin’ arts
And it wouldn’t be a day without a burn on Jas
You can find me in the CAB
Chillin’ with the geers
Look, we got some scientists who think they have it hard
I’m kicking ass in calc
I ain’t into takin’ arts
And it wouldn’t be a day without a burn on Jas
My job got me the bling
That bought me all my fancy shit
My pod, my tube, my cell, my threads
Look man, my Rutherford’s already gone.
And you should love it, way more than you than you hate it
I’m a skater,
You bitches had better believe it!
Pop shuvit, heelflip, 180°, casper, 5-0, boardslide, and kickflip to indy
I can bust the moves, like I can bust you mofo’s
Who the hell goes sailing?
What? Are you queer?
If James gets drunk, someone dial 911
And for god sake, Sam
Show him your boobs
I’ll tell you what I tell any WoW player
You geek
You nerd
If you don’t want to admit it
I’ll find your account
And Ben,
If your girlfriend is alone at theater again,
That’s where you’d better fucking be.
You can find me in the CAB
Chillin’ with the geers
Look, we got some scientists who think they have it hard
I’m kicking ass in calc
I ain’t into takin’ arts
And it wouldn’t be a day without a burn on Jas
You can find me in the CAB
Chillin’ with the geers
Look, we got some scientists who think they have it hard
I’m kicking ass in calc
I ain’t into takin’ arts
And it wouldn’t be a day without a burn on Jas
Hahahaha
Don’t act like you didn’t see this coming
You saw me writing this in da CAB all the time
If you don’t like it, you’d better pop off
D-unit
Signing off
Last week we went on one of our infamous camping trips. This time we went to Horse Creek Ranch in Fort Assiniboine. It’s two hours northwest of Edmonton. As usual, camping included the usual hyjinx of beer drinking, injury, near-death experiences, of course, and nearly getting kicked out.
As you can figure from the name, Horse Creek Ranch is mostly for horses and horseback riders. Most of the other people at the site brought mobile housing and horses with them. We were on a small section they set off for people with tents. The campsite is quiet nice. We thought he smell of the horse would have been bad, but we didn’t notice it.
Being city slickers, we’re not use to fences of the electrified variety especially when there is no sign advertising this fact. The fence managed to claim at least three victims. I think the score was 3-1 for the fence. Only one of us managed to touch the fence without getting shocked. We had one unwilling victim, one willing victim (only god knows why), and another who was a victim while trying to use a short cut, but I’m not gonna name any names.
It’s not a camping trip if we’re not on the brink of getting kicked out. Other bouts have been for stealing firewood from what we thought was an abandoned site, and causing a massive explosion just before the park ranger showed up. This time, certain individuals were being too noisy after quiet hour and keeping the riders up (they had to be up at 3:00 AM), but I’m not gonna name any names. Needless to say, they were annoyed, but the owner was pretty cool, and nicely told us to keep it quieter the next day. The owner, Siebe, was very understanding and kind. Even lent us an axe for the trip. The funny thing is that the next night, it was the riders that were keeping us up.
We learnt that hiking on a horse trail is bad idea. Lots of mud, lots of flies, and lots of walking, but we got a good view of the Athabasca River.
Every camp seems to get more dangerous. We always jokingly say that some is gonna die on one of our trips. We’ve had alcohol induced time travel. If you notice on the video from the previous trip, our friend, Ben, was within a few meters of one of our explosions. This time we were within a hair of that happening. One of our friends, not gonna name names, was found 15 km from our camp, and had to be picked up by one of the riders. I don’t know how they managed that, but that’s what happened. Not sure I want to go to the next camping trip since it looks like it’ll be the one where we bury someone. I kid. I kid. I hope.
Well, if someone dies, hopefully it’s an ironic, funny, and epic death that we can laugh about even through the tragedy. Anyway, you can visit these facebook albums for pics of us chillin’. Album 1 and Album 2. Hope to see everyone next trip.
