Happy Halloween!

Well, dear readers, I have a Halloween treat for you.  It's the Survivor of the Flames, carved onto a pumpkin.





If you're not nerdy enough to understand my treat, you need to read the Mistborn trilogy.  That'll nerd you right up.  Yes, I'm asking you to read 3 whole books to understand a throw-away joke on my blog.  Trust me, it's worth the read. 

As a side note, I'm super-excited for the new Mistborn book to come out next week!

Frenzied posting

Well, in case you haven't noticed, I've had a flurry of blogging this last week or so.  Some of you are wondering why that might be.  Those of you who have been reading my blog for more than 6 months don't wonder that because you recognize the cycle of "wow!  Blogger is super-awesome!" to "meh, I'll blog next month..." and back.

But for those inquisitive few, there is actually a reason this time.  Kate's sister Jessica needed to drive from DC to Texas with her dog and her baby.  That would be a grueling drive with no other adult around, so Kate offered to go along.  So, Kate flew to DC on Wednesday and spent Thursday and Friday (today) driving to Texas.  The plan was for her to come back next Wednesday after spending a couple days with her folks, but then my brother James went and had a baby.  I guess it was actually Regent who had the baby, but you get the picture.  With neither grandma able to come help out with a new baby, Kate offered to spend a few days in San Antonio helping James and Regent.  I've got such a thoughtful wife.

So, Kate is in Texas for two weeks and I'm all by my lonesome.  There's only so much Malcolm in the Middle I can watch, so I blog too.  Plus, I gotta give the fans what they want.

Movie Review: Tron Legacy

Well, imaginary readers, it's been a while since I've posted a movie review.  Tonight I am watching Tron: Legacy, and I have to give it an enthusiastic "meh."

Tron Legacy has excellent visuals.  Let me just get that out there from the beginning.  Visually it is a beautiful movie.  They even managed to have a young Jeff Bridges digitally put onto a body double for most of the movie, so it looks like you've got Jeff from the same time as the original Tron was made.  It's really impressive.

And, since lots of computery people wear masks (for some reason), Daft Punk has a brief cameo as a couple of DJs, which was kind of a fun wink at the audience.

So, so far we have two things going for us: fantastic visuals and the "hey, it's that guy!" moments.  Unfortunately, this film has very little else to offer.  I could talk about the bad acting (even from Jeff Bridges, which is hard, since he is so awesome), the lame writing, the Good Guy Ex Machina ending, and plenty of other things, but I won't.  Let me just focus on two things, one intangible and one very tangible. 

The intangible problem with this movie is that it lacks charm.  Tron was just such a charming, fun movie, but Tron: Legacy isn't.  It's hard to put my finger on the exact problem, but I think it is that they tryed to make it epic and big, instead of just making it fun.

The more tangible flaw was the serious over-use of a couple of effects.  For instance, every time anyone did anything cool (dodge a flying computer-frisbee, crash a light cycle, etc) they went into super-slow-motion.  It was kind of insulting after a while.  It felt like a laugh track.  The people who made the movie didn't think I was smart enough to catch how totally amazing that move was, so they slowed it down for me.  It got irritating.

And finally, one unrelated thought.  In the original Tron, the programs all saw the user as some sort of God, which was interesting because we got to deal with the user feeling like he was nothing and everyone else feeling like he was everything.  It made the character deeper.  In the sequel, they try to make the user into God.  Flynn was sort of a cross between Rand-Jesus from the last couple Wheel of Time books and Neo.  It was a bit much.

All in all, it was an OK movie, but I'll probably never watch it again.

Ken Jennings is the 99%

Ken Jennings has a worthless humanities degree. 

"...a huge multinational corporation poured millions of dollars into a computer that would demolish me on national TV, robbing me of my livelihood..."


He is the 99%.  Hilarious.

Conference

Well, it's Monday afternoon (actually, by the time I am finishing this, it's Wednesday night...).  I had a really busy weekend, and I thought I would tell some of it here.  I won't tell all of it here because, honestly, it was really boring (just ask Kate- I made her listen to a play-by-play).  This weekend was the Midwest Microbial Pathogenesis Conference.  Or as Kate called it, the Germ Convention.  Friday after work we got a talk about a bacterial transport system.  It was kind of slow, but the dinner was delicious.

At dinner I talked to Jose Martinez, a young professor from the University of Chicago (I think).  When he heard I was a member of the Church, he pointed to another professor and said "Dr. X over there" (no his name wasn't really Dr. X.  What do you think this is, a comic book?  I just forgot his name) "Dr. X over there is a Latter Day Saint and he's a really good man."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.  "Good for him?"  "Yeah, me too!"  I think I ended up saying something like "huh. that's neat."  Not the best answer, but regardless, it got me thinking a bit.  I hope that people who know me say that to Mormons they meet.  "That David Payne is a Latter Day Saint, and he's a really good man."

Saturday morning we went to lots of talks.  LOTS of talks.  In the afternoon I presented at a poster session.  It was my first presentation of my research to the broader scientific community.  I got lots of interest and lots of questions, and mostly very positive feedback.  It felt good to be so well received.  Blaise wasn't around much at the conference because his wife, Suzie, started having contractions (contractions have since stopped and no baby yet).  But he did give a talk that blew some minds.  Our lab is doing some important work in the field of pathogens.

So, there were lots more talks, and lots more science.  But like I said, I don't want to bore people.  Take home message: I presented and I rocked the house.

Michael Winslow

Does anybody else remember Michael Winslow?  He was the Black comedian from the 90s who did all the sound effects.  The one from Police Academy.  Anyway,  I remember that he did all sorts of crazy sound effects.  Turns out he has spent the last decades honing his craft.  It took me a minute to realize that all the sounds in this video other than the acoustic guitar are coming out of that guy's mouth.  Take a look.

I been saying it for years

The key to piracy-control is to make it more convenient to buy products than to steal them.  Video piracy has gone down significantly since Netflix came on the scene.  I read numbers on that a while ago, but now I don't feel like looking them up.  And now, we hear it from Steam, a video game company. 

If only the new NBC execs got this they would be making Hulu bigger instead of trying to kill it slowly.  Sad.  Maybe they should hire me to explain it to them.

I am a gremlin

Just in case anybody needs some funny for the day, I present for your viewing pleasure:

A bad lip-reading of Mitt Romney.



Happy Step-Child!

Construction workers. Geniuses.

The lab next to mine is under construction. It used to be a lounge with couches and a pool table and such, but now that it's a lab, it has to have a reenforced door. Yesterday they took off the old door, but they didn't have the new door in yet. Rather than put the old door back on, they just put drywall over the open doorway. Anyway, I just thought it was funny.

Camping trip part III - the site

After the drive, we got to DH Day camp ground. 

It was a beautiful little spot in the woods to pitch our new tent.

The site was really nice.  Fire pit and picnic table right next to the tent, just out of frame.  The best part of the site, though, was that it was so close to Lake Michigan.  These next pictures are taken less than a quarter mile from the tent.

We didn't stay long at the lake because it was really really cold. We made a brief trip into town, which was fun. The town clearly makes most of its money off of tourists coming to see the dunes. One place that was clearly doing well was the Cherry Republic - a store that sold dried cherries, cherry salsa, cherry chutney, and pretty much any other combination of words that contains "cherry".

We got cherry apple cider there and warmed up a bit before heading back to camp. We spent most of our time back at the site reading. Kate read in the tent

while I read by the fire (and since I had the camera, there is no photo evidence of that part of the trip).

All in all, it was a great trip. Some minor problems with the weather and such, but all in all, it was a really great weekend.

Camping trip part II - the trees.

So, we got back on the road after eating at Iva's.  As we got farther North the drive got absolutely beautiful.  I wish I could have caught it with some better pictures, but pictures coming out of a truck on the highway are not great.  Here are a couple tastes.

The trees were just gorgeous.  They were just starting to turn, so we were driving down the road, and suddenly a brilliant red tree would pop out of the green.  Just a fantastic drive.

Camping trip part I - the drive

Hey there, readers. As promised, I'm posting some pictures from our recent camping trip. It was pretty fun, so here's some pictures and a travelog.

Kate and I headed up to Sleeping Bear Dunes, up in the North West corner of Michigan.



For reference, we live in Ann Arbor, down by the base of the thumb. That's a lot of mitten to cover. We left AA about 10 in the morning excited for a camping trip. It was pretty rainy but we have a tarp and we weren't that worried.

On the way we got hungry, so we pulled over in Sterling, MI (pop. 533). Not much there, but we had a good feeling. And we were right. You see, Sterling, MI is home to Iva's Chicken Dinners.



Here's Kate in her camping clothes freezing so I could take a picture of Iva's. Isn't she sweet?

We ordered a Family Style dinner, which apparently means "Enough food to feed several families". They brought us soup, bread, cole slaw, mashed potatoes, and a whole fried chicken. That's right, I said a whole fried chicken.



I forgot to take a picture of the spread, so enjoy the picture of the aftermath. You can't see it in that picture, but the plates were very cool.



That's right, the restaurant's plates have a picture of the restaurant. Awesome.

And of course, we had to top it off with a slice of pie.



More to come...