Let's Catch Up

It's been awhile since I've posted last...so here is what's been going on.

I took my physics 2 final, and wound up getting C+ in the class as a whole. Meh. I passed, and moving on, as far away from physics from possible.

After the class, I went to Tuscon, AZ for a week to visit Mariana's family, see the sights, and visit U of A to see their immunobiology department. It's nice, and Tuscon as a whole is awesome. As long as a pool is nearby, I wouldn't mind living there.

Then school started. That's where I am right now. The first week has gone by pretty smoothly. I am currently taking Biochemistry 1, Physical Chemistry, Biochemistry lab, and Latin America Today. Which one of these do not belong? =P

I'll post more when I can!

~Zumacrume

Bill Maher is good.

So it's the tail end of the Larry King interview with Ball Maher, and wanted to just say that I'm glad Bill Maher is as outspoken as he is. My views and the views of people I know are right in line with his. He has a movie coming out Oct. 3rd, which I'll go see, and you should too. Pro nuclear power, anti offshore oil drilling, would prefer parliamentary government, etc.

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be an ass kissing post, but go hear him out if you haven't.

Physics 2 final is tomorrow, 11:45am. After that, i'm going to figure out my flight stuff, and then Thursday i'll be off to the mall to get new sneakers and maybe a new pair of shorts. My flight is Friday the 22nd and i'll be in Tuscon Friday night.

~Zumacrume

If all else fails...

at least I'm not that person. Take that physics 2!

~Zumacrume

Faith and the government: A huge waste of 2 hours.

I'll sum up the forum from last night: "we're politicians, and we love to lie to you about things we don't believe to get more votes."

I wanted to throw up. Obama citing the bible especially made me want to throw up. Give me a break...we already have a president who is talking to god, do we need one who can cite the bible when asked?
Or do we need a president who believes stem cells have human rights?

Here is a question....there is a cocktail you can give adult differentiated somatic cells to convince them to reverse their differentiation and become 'pulripotent stem cells'. Now, they aren't the same as embryonic stem cells, but they are close. So the question is...if I take my differentiated somatic cell, hit it with this cocktail so it goes back to being a 'pluripotent stem cell'...does it have the same rights as another human being? I mean, it has 46 chromosomes, it has the ability to differentiate into any type of tissue. If John McCain's line of thought is complete, he would say yes, and then I can't use my own cells to fix myself.

At the moment of conception, there is one cell. It's the zygote. It is no longer egg and sperm, but one cell with one fused nucleus.

A single adult somatic cell, treated with this cocktail, is a single cell, with a single nucleus. It has the same potential for differentiation into any tissue in the body.
Does it have the same potential really? Well, it's very close, and work being done now is only increasing that.

So I'm lost. Help me John McCain. Can you use a nifty Vietnam reference to clear this up for me?

Thanks
Zumacrume

Aquabats/Suburban Legends in NYC

This fall, The Aquabats are doing an East Coast tour!

They'll be at B.B Kings on Thursday, November 20th, playing with the Suburban Legends. Get your cadet uniforms to the dry cleaner, this should shall be awesome.

I'll be there, and I hope you will be too.

www.theaquabats.com for more info. Complete tour dates not on their website yet, but B.B. Kings is selling tickets for 12 bucks for this show, so it's booked.

see you there
~Zumacrume

The Bible Code...and why I hate most people.

So, the WoW beta servers are down, and Mariana is out picking up her brother from school. I'm home, eating dinner and watching TV peacefully. On the History channel, there was a show about the Bible Code. I'll sum it up for you: Using statistics, you can search the letters of the Torah and make a matrix. In this matrix, there will be coded words that are clumped together that all have to do with the same thing. These things can be 9/11, world war 2, the SARS scare, Shuttle Columbia blowing up in re-entry, etc.

Okay, that's pretty cool. Now, some people believe that these codes were put there by a supernatural force. They state that the odds are too incredibly small to be by chance. Meh. A lot of things happen by chance. But okay, I'll take the bait. Tell me about this supernatural inspired bible code...

Well, Since it can't be chance, it must be God. So other scientists said "It's still statistics, look, we'll take a piece of work of similar length and run it through tests and see if we can get similar predictions." And you know what? They did...and they got similar predictions. They used Moby Dick. And do you know what Moby Dick predicted? Princess Diana's death, JFK's assassination "in cars", etc.

Bible Code believes either write it off as rubbish OR (the best part), Moby Dick is also divinely coded.

So long story short...if you really want to, you can find a code about death in anything using these equidistant spacing matrices. I suggest you try and find a program and do it!

~Zumacrume

Northrend!

I made it!

That's me, on the boat to Northrend:


And there it is....pretty ugly right? Yea...borean tundra is kind of a mess. It is a warzone out there, and it certainly shows...
But it isn't all tundra and ocean zombies...

There is also this vykrul castle, complete with a pinnicle! I ran Utguarde Keep, the level 70-71 instance, and it wasn't too bad. 3 boss encounters, took around an hour to do with 72-73's in outland epics, and me, the 70 death knight in greens and blues. I didn't have a damage meter, nor have I ever played a melee DPS in any kind of instance before, so I don't know how my dps faired overall. I think it was okay, though.

Also, the last boss bugged on us. He pulls a "I died...PSYCHE! I'm rezzed!" on the group, actually, he really does die, but then the Arthas angels come, "deem him worthy", and rez him into a half zombie half vyking. Pretty sweet right? Well...if you kill his normal phase TOO quickly, the whole middle part bugs, and he just lays there, with the angel in the air, and no way to select him. The fix was to run out of the instance, and then go back...he reset, and we slowly killed him. Piece of cake.

Then, I spent the next day and a half questing in Howling Fjord...which is very pretty:


That last place is a quazi zombie/scourge vykrul city...when you go inside, you find out that the queen of the vykrul is trying to raise the dead king of the vykrul from death. When you kill her...this happens:

OMFG The Lich King! So he totally is like "Hey, bro, so...go to Utgarde Pinnicle and wait for these fools to come find you and avenge your wife...and serve me!" So ghost vykrul does that. cool right? I think so.

So...That's all I have for now...Death Knight is at lvl 72, hopefully 73 by tonight. Enjoy the screenshots!

~Zumacrume