I love the Internets, where I don’t even have to go to the San Diego ComicCon to geek obsess. I personally would be furious/ticked if someone jacked my statue of a French toga lady. I would also be angry if someone ripped off my head and shot fireballs at me. (Just to clarify.)
There are also new photos, one carnage/one party, at 1-18-08.com.
I thought that this was funny. (Actually, slightly disturbing for me and Paradiso for my wife.)
It brought us Swedish meatballs, Billy bookshelves and endless queues on the London North Circular on Saturday afternoons. Now Ikea is going one step further and opening the Ikea Hostel, where customers can stay overnight if they haven’t finished their shopping.
Later this month, Ikea Norway will let shoppers sleep overnight in one of its two Oslo warehouses, an operation that will last a week. “It will be like an alternative hostel,” said company spokesman Frode Ullebust.
“There will be the regular dormitory with lots of beds stacked up together. We will also have a bridal suite, with a round bed and a hanging chandelier, and the luxury suite, where customers can enjoy breakfast in bed,” he said. Family rooms will also be available for parents and children to join into the Ikea fun. None of the guests will be charged for their stay.
Mr Ullebust said that, as far as he knew, this was Ikea’s first foray into the hotel business. Every night, the 30 lucky few will be able to stack up on meatballs, Norwegian salmon and cranberry mousse, as Ikea is offering free dinner and breakfast at the usual canteen.
Whereas Brits may associate the Swedish furniture giant with screaming kids, traffic jams in the parking lot and an occassional riot when a new warehouse opens, it seems Norwegians see a trip to Ikea as the ultimate tourist attraction.
“Around 900,000 visitors come to visit Ikea during the summer holidays. It’s more than one of the biggest attractions in Norway, the Holmenskollen ski jump, gets in one year,” claimed Mr Ullebust.
“We have five Ikea stores in Norway, all situated next to the four biggest cities, which are all in the south in the country. We found that people from the north of Norway include a visit to Ikea as part of their holidays,” said the spokesman. “The Ikea Hostel will make the destination complete.”
Overnight stayers can check in to their new abodes from 10pm, an hour before closing time, but will have to be quick in the morning. “The shop opens at 10am so if they are lazy, people might get woken up by shoppers testing out their mattresses,” said Mr Ullebust.
Customers will also be able to take their bedsheets home afterwards. “It’s a nice souvenir,” he added, “We will also give them bathrobes with the Ikea Hostel logo on, and some slippers, so they won’t get cold at night.”
Many twisting aisles
That never allow you to
Escape the meatballs.
Opening boxes
my heart jumped at the chirping
cricket cockroaches
As I went through the supplies, the Indy theme went through my head.
Beowulf looks awesome, like Final Fantasy:Spirits Within. I am so glad that I ordered the graphic novel for my library.
I saw Tom Leavitt’s movie (okay, so Blue Sky Studio’s movie trailer) before the Simpsons movie. At first the projector was off and it was just sound, but then they fixed it quickly. Here’s the full trailer. What I find interesting about Horton Hears a Who (leave it to Sean the Humanities teacher to point out the deep meaning) is that the story can apply to yet-to-be-born-children.
Big Weekend: I also finished Deathly Hallows last night. Loved the…nevermind. It just hit me how jacked up it would be to talk about the last few chapters if people haven’t read the book yet. When someone gets to the chapter called “King’s Cross”, tell me. Funky stuff.
The Haiku:
Set to the wonderful tune
sung by a great choir.
—-
It’s actually a video comic book that I made of Spider-Pig
It was actually
pretty funny and it lived
up to the big hype.
I almost regret
posting this link to the site
but I laugh out loud.
Can a dementor
steal the soul from someone who
votes for Hillary?
(Editor’s Note: Mitt Romney can fit into the syllable scheme, too.)
I went in to the
library today to hear
the beep of the books
I am now a librarian. (Not imaginary, for real this time.) I am so stoked. I read the books, I teach the kids about the books, I buy the books, and a whole bunch of other stuff. With scanning wand in hand and a purchase order for Deathly Hallows and Ranger’s Apprentice, it was magical.
It’s too late at night to foray into Galaxiwiki and the robotic fly spies.
Someone left a note
on our door wanting to buy
the Reliant K
Maybe I can be one step closer to this.
Here’s from IGN:
LucasArts on WiiCompany took a wait-and-see approach, but now it’s begun developing software for Nintendo’s platform.July 23, 2007 – In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, LucasArts president Jim Ward spoke briefly on the company’s late start on Nintendo’s Wii platform. The publisher has in recent years seemingly ignored Nintendo’s consoles, choosing instead to focus on Microsoft and Sony systems with rare (and tardy) ports to GameCube or Wii. The Mercury News posed the question, has Wii’s success changed any of the thinking at LucasArts?
“No, it hasn’t changed thinking. I’m excited by it. The Wii came out of nowhere,” said Ward.
The LucasArts president noted that the Big N didn’t exactly beg the third party to make titles for its new system. “And by the way, with all due respect to Nintendo, they’re not the greatest at third-party relationships because they’re kind of focused on their own games. So we didn’t really know a whole lot about this thing, and they weren’t out there trumpeting, ‘We’re going to broaden the industry.’ They just kind of let it happen. But that direction and that effort – I’m on a mountaintop cheering that on.”
Finally, Ward had some encouraging words for Wii fans still looking forward to more robust LucasArts support. “… for us, there was a bit of a wait-and-see in terms of ‘Well, what in the hell is this thing even?’ and ‘Is it going to take off?’ But the minute we understood what it was, we began development.”
LucasArts’ first Wii game, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, is set to debut this November. LucasArts reps have, in the past, offered hints that the company may be also exploring a lightsaber game in which gamers use the Wii remote to wield the weapons.
Actually, Miyamoto always says he’s going to change gaming. And then he smiles his Mario smile, where his eyes turn to rotating gold coins. (I expect that when he heard that the Wii dominated the market in June, he ran around his apartment with his head tucked down going “doo doo doo” like he just grabbed a flashing star.)
I borrowed the book
from my neighbor so now I
peruse plot summaries.
(Being an English teacher I only read the first couple books in a series, figure out if I can recommend them or not, and then move on.)
Modern day versions
of Greek heroes quest for the
Fleece and Math homework
Chore Wars went live this week. I had actually seen a comic strip on Penny Arcade where they featured the site. To give you an idea, here’s my character sheet.
Basically this is a database where you enter in the names of chores as adventures and then people connected to you (housemates, co-workers, minions) claim the rewards for completing these adventures. This takes what is obsessive/twinkish about Runescape/Guild Wars/Everquest/World of Warcraft by killing/random clicking on stuff and getting XP/treasure but now makes it actually worth something (ignoring gold farms and selling your Level 60 Mage/Shaman/Fanboy).
What also works about the set-up is that in the weekly update it ranks people based on XP, for a little competition. But more importantly it helps you open up dialogue about what people actually do to help out around the house.
I just kept going this morning. I wanted to test out the functions, like how combat worked, so I just kept cleaning. I started when I woke up but then stopped hours later when I noticed I had gone two hours past lunch.
The combat reminds me of the old text adventures where you just kept pressing on one button and hitting enter. You can skip the combat because it is just for looks. The combat really doesn’t affect the XP or anything, but is kinda fun seeing the goofy monster names that the adventure creator named. We’ll see how people fare against General Tso at the Cooking of the Dinner.
Kishi is already joining me in the fight against dirt. If you want to help us take on Lord Weed’s troops, just leave a comment and I can e-mail you the invite code.
I have yet to see what the benefit of going gold is, other than just you need to “go gold” whenever there’s free internet games (shyeah right).
The drawback: It’s in a different time zone, so it may show you as doing chores on different days than you actually did. I haven’t found where to change that in the settings yet. (Also, there’s a limited amount of character portraits, but how many people are joining your fight?)
The Haiku:
Chore Wars tracks my work
Whether it’s cleaning showers
or my plundering.
Totally different subject: I wish Wayne Brady was on better shows, since he is so funny. ‘Don’t Forget the Lyrics’ is fun. (It’s funny that NBC is copying the same format with ‘Singing Bee’ with Joey Fatone…just like ‘American Idol’ and then whatever NBC has.) A guy just won $350,000 singing CCR’s ‘Fortunate Son’.
This is officially rad. I will definitely be giving an update when I have more time.
posting from the wii
it is fun to be witty
typing with remotes
with madden 08
they brought back the franchise mode
eat that, rookie camp
Finally! Now this is what space suits are supposed to look like!
This is straight outta MIT. Woot, United States.
Newman’s prototype suit is a revolutionary departure from the traditional model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts a force on the astronaut’s body to protect it from the vacuum of space, the suit relies on mechanical counter-pressure, which involves wrapping tight layers of material around the body. The trick is to make a suit that is skintight but stretches with the body, allowing freedom of movement.
Over the past 40 years, spacesuits have gotten progressively heavier, and they now weigh in at about 300 pounds. That bulk — much of which is due to multiple layers and the life support system coupled with the gas-pressurization — severely constrains astronauts’ movements. About 70 to 80 percent of the energy they exert while wearing the suit goes towards simply working against the suit to bend it.
“You can’t do much bending of the arms or legs in that type of suit,” Newman says.
When an astronaut is in a micro-gravity environment (for example, doing a spacewalk outside the International Space Station), working in such a massive suit is manageable, but, as Newman says, “It’s a whole different ballgame when we go to the moon or Mars, and we have to go back to walking and running, or loping.”
Another advantage to her BioSuit is safety: if a traditional spacesuit is punctured by a tiny meteorite or other object, the astronaut must return to the space station or home base immediately, before life-threatening decompression occurs. With the BioSuit, a small, isolated puncture can be wrapped much like a bandage, and the rest of the suit will be unaffected.
…
Key to their design is the pattern of lines on the suit, which correspond to lines of non-extension (lines on the skin that don’t extend when you move your leg). Those lines provide a stiff “skeleton” of structural support, while providing maximal mobility.
For those of us still on Earth, check how walkable areas are with your “walk score”.
Nintendo’s WiiWare original downloadable games channel (or Wii Software as it’s set to be known in Europe) could launch later this year, despite Reggie Fils-Aime’s original announcement of a 2008 debut. That’s according to Nintendo’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications George Harrison, who also noted some titles for the new service are already in development.
Now we can get more
games when we want them, but will
the world buy my games?
Should I be ashamed
That I have a favorite
Choreographer?
First, some laughs:
Now, some beauty (baeuty):
Wade Robson (officially: The Man) does modern Jazz (not that funky interpretive junk that contemporary choreographers do). Check these two
Triplets of Bellevue
Dancing Flame (you gotta watch the genius background info)
I guess Wade also sells dance shoes.