Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Busy January

I was sort of surprised to look down at my watch and see that it's the 31st already. But with research in the morning, play rehearsal 3 times a week in the evening, and various TA related stuff to do sprinkled in between, time does fly by quickly.

What's this play rehearsal you say? Well, my friend Jason had written up a monologue of 20+ characters based on (ficticious) characters who died in the September 11th attacks, and the play basically explores the attacks from various points of view. Jason asked me if I could help him be an assistant director for his play, and I figured it'll give me something else to think about during the day outside of research, so I took the role. And so far, I've been enjoying going through the past 2 weeks of practice with the actors and actresses reading through their monologues. Jason has done a good job with the casting of each character, so there wasn't much hand-holding involved to explain how each character should be portrayed. Since he wrote the play, I let Jason be the bigger critic while I supplement my thoughts here and there whenever appropriate, and so far all the actors and actresses have responded very well. Hopefully this'll lead up to a great performance when March rolls around!

Friday, January 27, 2006

Do your own sand painting

Drawing isn't my forte, so maybe you guys and girls will have better luck trying to make something cool with this falling sand game

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Nifty Honda Ad

No, it's not the Rube Goldberg machine one, but it's just as cool.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Test your mental might!

Thanks to Kabitizin and Velius for pointing out this interesting brainteaser. I got 15/33 (1-3, 7, 12, 18-19, 21, 23-25, 27, 29, 32), which apparently puts you into the "intelligent" category, but as Kabitizin said, this test is hardly a comprehensive test of your intelligence. Answers are posted on Kabitzin's site here.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

And now for something different...

To give myself some other things to think about and not worry about research all the time, I volunteered to help my buddy Jason assist in his direction of a show that he and another friend co-wrote about the September 11 events. I'll be the first to say that I have absolutely no experience in such matters, but hey, I'll give it my best shot and hopefully be able to contribute.

Looks like the weather here in Columbus has decided to take a page out of Ithaca. This past Monday, the weather was sooo nice with clear skys and mid 50 temperatures. I wake up Wednesday morning, and there's SNOW on the ground! And the outlook for Thursday: 50 degree weather....

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Fun Facts

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Kungfucius!

  1. Kungfuciusomancy is the art of telling the future with Kungfucius.
  2. Medieval knights put the skin of Kungfucius on their sword handles to improve the grip.
  3. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching Kungfucius.
  4. It is impossible to fold Kungfucius more than seven times.
  5. About one tenth of Kungfucius is permanently covered in ice.
  6. All of the roles in Shakespeare's plays - including the female roles - were originally played by Kungfucius.
  7. In Chinese, the sound 'Kungfucius' means 'bite the wax tadpole'.
  8. There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat Kungfucius, though it may feel uncomfortable.
  9. It's bad luck for a flag to touch Kungfucius.
  10. Birds do not sleep in Kungfucius, though they may rest in him from time to time.
I am interested in - do tell me about

Friday, January 13, 2006

Saturday, January 7, 2006

COSI after dark

One of the bigger attractions I haven't gotten around to seeing in Columbus was the COSI center, which has a lot of nifty science-type exhibitions and fun games to play around with. But thanks to the student activity fee all students play, OSU sponsored a free night for OSU students to go, so I couldn't pass this one up! Of course, what's a visit to COSI without some pictures :P

COSI after dark!
A nifty harp with invisible strings near the COSI entrance
Space: The Final Frontier
See for yourself how the Mars Rover moved around and picked things up
Robots in action! (2.1 meg)
Bottle Rocket!
Want to lose weight? Check which planet you should live on
Monkey Space Suit
David saves Sai from inevitable doom from the dropping weight.
Don't get dizzy now!
Now try looking at it in motion! (675 kb)
How risky do you feel?
Bed of Nails (870 kb)
Now where's that black ball?
Law of averages in action! (510 kb)
Steve has no pants
Cool bone mesh overlooking the walkway
Pendulum to prove that the earth is rotating
Flying brains and monkeys!
This was a "Progress" exhibition showing a street in the early 1900's
Here's the same street 50 years later
I wonder how the X-box 360 looks on that TV
Old school cosmetics
Hmm....
More old school products
Wow, bring back those gas prices!
In the "Life" section, there were a bunch of interesting x-rays. As you can see, this dog wasn't so fortunate
Cross-section of a human body (not for the squeamish)
Uncertainty of Life
For peace and quiet, visit the echo-free room! (520 kb)
Sai and David decide to jack up a car while they were there
Ocean!
Grr...I can't remember the name of the statue, but it's a cool picture
Nifty water bell filled with mist (1.1 meg)
Mini Tornado (1.3 meg)

Monday, January 2, 2006

1 week, 2000 driving miles, and many flying miles later...

Despite the many miles I traveled over the holidays, it felt good to shut things down, take it easy, and enjoy the little things over the holiday break :) And yes, I did put 2000 miles on my mini-van traveling between NYC, NJ, PA, and Ohio. In NYC on the 24th, I caught up with my friend Kevin, and we went to see the huge Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. There also was this cool snowflake light pattern laid on the side of a building, and about every 20 minutes in the evening, the snowflakes would flicker to a song.

On the 27th, I caught up with more Cornell friends in NJ where Orca kindly offered her house to let us play games (Apples to Apples, Texas Hold'em, Taboo, and Guitar Hero) all day despite the remodeling her house is undergoing. Thanks Orca for the hospitality! ^_^

From the 29th till the 1st of the new year, I was down in Houston, Texas visiting Velius. It felt good to be outside in 70 degree weather in December, and Velius took me around several restaurants to get a taste of Texas. The best of the ones I went to was Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, since I'm typically not a big fan of seafood, but this place made the best salmon I've probably ever had (and yes, it came on top of a wood plank that's used for flavor while baking). Also interesting to taste was fried alligator as an appetizer. To top it off was some delicious banana pudding in a jar you get to keep! Before I was down there, Velius and I were trash talking on who the real Guitar Hero was, but I went down and showed him :PBesides Guitar Hero, Velius and I comboed our way through X-Men 2 on the x-box with our unstoppable team of Iceman, Storm, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler. I also got to meet up with some of his Texas buddies as we all went bowling and played an interesting game called Mafia. My goal in bowling was to try and break 100, but I just ran out of time as our 2 hour limit on the lanes had just ended when I broke 90 on the 7th frame of the 3rd game -.- Ah well, considering it had been months since I last bowled, I guess I can't complain too much :P Thanks Velius for your hospitality! ^_^ We'll have to get Team =VGI= together sometime.