Thesis and Antithesis

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Video Games

1. Look both ways before you go. This may seem an obvious point but how many of us have played with that one gung-ho gamer who loves to rush in, guns blazing, just to wind up dead three seconds later? This is a lesson that's just as applicable in real life. Crossing the street for example, or entering a conference room before a meeting - case it out first to pick out the best place to sit, next to that cutie from accounting. Or when the crowded train pulls up to the platform, already be scoping out the least impacted area so you can grab the seat. Then just focus, and GO.

Everything I learned from Video Games was Wrong

1. Jumping on your enemies’ heads is a) Almost impossible to do and b) In no way going to incapacitate them.

Mambo ... er ... Smart Aleck #5

Smart Aleck Answer #4:
A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but she couldn't find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?" The stock boy replied, "No ma'am, they're dead."

- The Things We Think and Do Not Say (blog)

As you might imagine, the stories of Alecks 1, 2, 3, and 5 are also in Seoh's latest blog post. And they are pretty funny.

Hard Work Pays Off

I've just finished the setup and put a bunch of posts on Laughing Stock, my new blog that pokes fun at the BBC news website's funny photo choices.


http://www.martinburch.com/bbcphotos/

I spend tonight developing my latest creation, and while I can't exactly shout "it's alive! it's alive! alive!!!" I am pretty proud of it. And with user involvement, it could become much more alive than it is now.

Oh The Irony

So, I'm deleting my bookmarks and I'll never read Mr. M's journal again. Hopefully, everyone else will do the same, and he'll end up talking to himself — exactly what he deserves for shutting out the feedback of the community.
- Me, Blogger Martin Burch

Remember back when I complained about a blog that stopped allowing comments? Remember when I perdicted that ending commenting would spell demise for his blog? Well, it hasn't. In fact, he's re-enabled comments! Although now added (prison) to his blog title, so maybe that's a condition of his sentence. I dunno. Anyway, the ironic upshot is now you can comment on his comment that says he won't be allowing any any more comments.

But back to no comments spelling demise for blogs ... the Headless Zombie Bunny blog over at http://headlesszombiebunny.blogspot.com/ has died due to just that item. Well, it might have been already dead with a title like that. It's supposed to be a "daily" photoblog of bad BBC Stock Photo choices, the title comes from one of those bad choices. The upshot is, they used to allow comments. On Apr 12, the killed 'em. I've only seen one post after that. My last comment was that they should post some of the stock photo bloopers people posted in the comments. Guess they didn't like that and decided to go hide under a rock or something.

Website by Publisher

This website has been created as part of a project for Mr. Hensley's AP Language and Composition class.
- Catch 22: A Novel Website by Martin Burch

http://www.martinburch.com/upload/publish/index.html

I used Microsoft Publisher's website creator function to create this snazzy site. If it wasn't fixed width, I could wholehartedly recommend using Publisher again in the future.

TCP Podcast 050507 Show Notes

As promised in the podcast:

Canyon.mid Arrangement:
http://virt.vgmix.com/index.php?p=32

Remix Reading:
http://www.remixreading.org/node/154

More Professional Podcasting

"Uh, um, er, well, so like, you know, I mean, uh, yeah"

- words spouted by podcasters everywhere

But not by me, because I've taken a bit of time to write up a script for my next podcast. Plus my friend Curbie has developed some theme music, and I have my own "Boing!" sound effect (think Daily Source Code) ... it's the great sound of a pencil scratching thoughts on a piece of paper. It's starting to sound sort-of professional! Now if my cat would stop playing with the mic cord ...

Copying the link in the right column (audio feed or podcast button) to ipodder will add The Chewed Pencil Podcast feed.

A New Breed of Smartass

A new breed of smartass
- English 3 AP classmate

Boredom, talent, and "a new breed of smartass" come together to create a useless presentation on the Iceberg Analogy. My English teacher keeps using it, so I finally snapped, went totally mad, and made a presentation about it. It's not perfect -- nothing created at 1:30 AM while suffering from lack of sleep ever is -- but there is a slim chance of extra credit.

Yay for useless presentations.
The%20Iceberg%20Analogy.ppt

The benefits of the <PRE> HTML tag

(will you teach a
wretch to live
straighter than a needle)

ask
  her
    ask
      when
        (ask and
        ask
        and ask
again and) ask a
brittle little
person fiddling
in
the
rain

        e.e.cummings

Lookey, using the <PRE> tag, I can display preformatted texts, notably e.e.cummings poetry. That should be a big help to my friend the alpha noodle over at Carpe Verbum, who's trying to display homage to edward.

Preformatted text is ours!