The South #1

Wooh! The South is number one! Specifically, Alabama is number two!! Ironically, most people in Huntsville look like skinny pasty Rose kids - you know, the typical engineer build.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/07/17/obesity.states.ap

P.S. Jenny and I saw The Dark Knight on opening day. I don't want to echo the flood of critical reviews and blog posts regarding the flick, but it truly is one of the few films which, in my opinion, totally lives up to, if not surpasses, its hype. Jenny and I have talked about seeing it in IMAX this weekend - and I never pay to see a movie in theaters a second time.

Cyberpunctual

Biotechnology? Invisibility cloaking? I'm not sure if anyone else is a fan of Ghost in the Shell, but some scientists seem to be trying to bring that world to fruition. And with a prediction like "humans will be mostly non-biological by around 2030" it seems they're trying to catch up with the storyline. I just hope they skip over the whole World War III and World War IV parts of the plot.

Of course cyberpunk stories like Blade Runner, RoboCop, and The Matrix also come to mind, but for whatever reason Ghost in the Shell seems the most plausible to me.

As soon as I read an article about warp drive technology I'll probably go ahead and make some Star Trek jokes.

Mr. Covele Goes to Austin

The alumni bar crawl this past weekend was mucho fun, even if Rocksteady Bebop did kick our asses. Having arrived a little early, the hotel guys began with some beer (and beer samplers) at Rock Bottom before moving on to the scheduled dinner at The Ram. From there we split into guys who didn’t mind the $5 cover for Nicky Blaine's‎ (an upscale cigar bar) and guys who preferred the Wild Beaver (insert innuendo here). From there it was 32oz. German beers at Rathskeller, then on to Claddagh Irish Pub‎. It seems Purdue has done nothing for Kenny’s tolerance, forcing an abrupt departure from the latter. Dave overheard the bartender holding a mop going into the men's room saying "Why do people do this to me?" - though I'm not sure how well that mop would work on a urinal. Do you have the imagery yet? A few of us (including I who had been up since 5am) returned with Kenny to the hotel while the others, I learned the next morning, concluded their night at a nudy bar.

My room’s occupants began the next morning with breakfast while the rest of the guys needed a couple more hours to sleep. While thinking of good breakfast places (and why is it that only cheap hotels serve continental breakfast?) Edmonson and Cameron recommended Qdoba, fine by me. Then we get there and I realize it’s a fast food Mexican grille – because there’s nothing like nachos after a long night of imported beers. Boy oh boy is Jenny lucky she wasn’t around for that car ride home.

We eat up at the circle and chill at the hotel while the other guys slowly start the day. Brent clogs the toilet and has to call for a plunger to be sent up, thattaboy. After all is said and done, I chill in Greenwood for a couple more hours, say my farewell to Brent, and return home. Brent is moving to Austin next weekend to get his PhD in Plasma Physics, if you weren’t aware.

And so it was that I awoke (a little hung over) at 5am on Saturday, drove six hours to Indy for a bar crawl, and drove back to Huntsville on Sunday. I still got it.

When I got gas halfway through my trip, I calculated my car as getting 39.8 mpg. I was so freaking close! I have a personal goal to average 40 mpg on a tank of gas.

Anheuser-Busch Has a Price Tag

And it's $52,000,000,000. That could buy 75 billion bottles of Bud Light, enough to get the entire world tipsy (and maybe get JJ a fat Christmas bonus). It looks like the world's second largest brewery (Belgium brewery InBev) is aiming to buy America's largest brewery to create one helluva super brewery, Anheuser-Busch InBev.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/14/anheuser.inbev.ap

After reading this article, I felt relieved not to have learned about it in Pike's back lounge - because I can imagine the moaning and groaning that'll be going on. Having once been, I know how disgruntled drunken college boys will feel about our biggest brewery going Euro. Sure enough, I received an invite to join "Boycott the un-Americanizing of Anheuser-Busch" on Facebook before lunchtime. Personally, I rarely drink AB products so I don't give much of hoot about the deal (which still needs to be approved by shareholders and antitrust regulators). Though admittedly, I'd be a little apprehensive if I heard a brewery like Dogfish Head were to be sold to a foreign company, so I understand. But in this case, InBev makes better beers than Anheuser (not to mention AB has been responsible for the importation of many InBev beers) so I'm somewhat in favor of the purchase. Really, I'm just curious to see how it all unfolds.

At least I got to tour the Anheuser-Busch factory in St. Louis while it still was the Anheuser-Busch factory.

P.S. JJ's company makes bottles. In case you didn't get it.

Update: I found this online, and I have to admit it's pretty funny.

One Year at Dynetics

I started work at my first big boy job one year ago yesterday. Hooray for me.

Good Boy, Oil Man

This is the type of article to which I enjoy starting my day...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/08/pickens.plan/index.html

Shoulda Been an Architect

I should have been an architect, only because this is so freakin' sweet...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/25/duibai.tower/
http://www.dynamicarchitecture.net

While I'm thinking about architecture, I'll mention my discovery of Google SketchUp the other day - which is also freakin' sweet. How have I not heard about this software until version six? Anyways, it's amongst the coolest free apps I ever downloaded, right up there with Firefox and VLC.

P.S. Firefox 3 is out. It rocks.