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

A word on politics....

I'm not sure if you guys see what I see, (probably not), but everyone in the news media is going crazy. First, Obama says keeping your tires inflated and having tune ups on your car will save some oil. That's true. Now to the extent it would, I'm sure it's not as much as he said, but he's a politician, not a physicist. Politicians embellish the truth, it's their job, at least if they want to keep getting elected.

Calm down, news media. He could have easily said "Get a bicycle and bike to work" and it would not have made such an impact. So stop complaining, he is just telling everyone to do what they can to stop excess usage.

Also...has anyone seen the article on cnn.com about the treatment of captured insurgents in Iraq? And how they put them in 3x3x6 wooden crates for up to 12 hours at a time in the sun? And then, human rights activists are like "Um, I don't know if that's torture". WTF America? It is torture. That box is coffin sized. Standing for 12 hours in the sun is not healthy, both for skeletal muscle, and for potential of heat exhaustion. It is completely wrong, inhumane, and prison worthy.
But then again, this whole war was started illegally, and the president and cabinet members should be impeached and sent to prison. For people so crazy about upholding the constitution whenever the second ammendment is called into question, they sure do like to skip the part about congress declaring war and not the president. Was there a congressional vote on going to war with Iraq? Nope. Good game america...L2P.

~Zuma

PS
the beta servers are down, new build going up today. I had errors with my client, so I uninstalled and am now reinstalling. The servers went down at 5pm EDT and should be back up 6-8 hours later. I'm 30% done downloading the beta client again, and it is 7:15pm. Hopefully if the servers come back up in 4 hours i'll be all patched and ready to go, then again, they may not be up til 2am my time, so I think it'll work out.

PPS
I don't support our troops. /flame on

DESTRUCTION!

First off...I am sorry for the chest gear. It was better, i swear...but I can't speak for the look. The fashion is SOO last year. I upgraded 2 other gear slots...a ring and a new weapon. The ring is from the bone wastes and is a very minor upgrade (+1 each of the same stats) as one of the starting rings, and the axe is the Honed Void Axe from the circle of blood quest in Nagrand. Slap some cinderglacier on that and it is beautiful.



Tonight I dinged 67. Know what that means? It means death knight in Northrend baby! I have real life things to do tomorrow, but I'll say Saturday is the day Smart Omega goes toNorthrend. Odds are ill be flying into Borean Tundra, only because I want to see how the orcish settlement looks. I'm so sick of tents and tribal crap as cities for the Horde. I must admit I get jealous of all the cool towns and cities the Alliance get. They look so good...we Horde only get some tents and rocks and shallow ponds (thanks, Orgrimmar). But once I get to Borean Tundra, I'll probably fly or turtle my way over to Howling Fjord, since that zone looks amazing. Plus, it has WoW vikings...can you really argue with that?



Sweet offhand! The epic blue checkboard cube! I hear its got the sweets dps.

~Actually, That is what happens when you cycle through your weapons (default key = Z) and get to the weapon after your main weapon. I guess this is what a sigil looks like. Seems kind of pointy. And not evil.

Currently I'm questing in Nagrand, and I'll probably stay there until 68. Make sure to keep checking the blog for updates, as I will be making them nightly. Isn't that just the BOMB DIGGITY?!!?

~Zumacrume

Plague Strikingly Fresh!

Hellfire, consider yourself completed.

I dropped all the group quests except for the ones I could solo (which were more than I thought there would be...) then again, there were a thousand death knights running around as it was, so even if we weren't partied, we wound up helping each other out.

Overall, the general chat is pretty quiet...every now and then people crop up to tell us how overpowered we are, and how people are going to complain about our overpoweredness. Then a half full group of blood death knights are asking for more to join for ramparts or blood furnace. I'm tempted to run a full death knight group, but then again I feel like it would be a waste of time.

Now, I'm on to Zangarmarsh...I went there to get the flight path, and realized everything is so blue, including my gear, mount, and eyes. Hopefully I'll be okay when I leave that swampy place.

Death and Decay is a very good spell to cast before screenshotting... just adds that extra atmosphere.

I tried to set up a live feed, but my computer isn't good enough to keep a decent framerate while streaming, both for me playing and for the video to be watchable. Sorry guys and gals! I'll be posting to the blog often so maybe that will be just as good =)

enjoy the limited screenshots I have today
~Zumacrume

WotLK Beta: First Impressions

So I spent all last night leveling a death knight, and I must say...its some good stuff...

There is me and the big guy himself..The Lich King...after plundering some Scarlet Crusade.

I'm actually really happy by what they are doing with the death knight starting zone...ill sum it up: You start off, and the scarlet crusade has this whole town...then, a third of the way through, you go back up to The Ebon Hold (the floating death knight capital). When you come back down, you entered a quazi instanced version of the same zone, but now the first half of the Scarlet Crusade's town is burning, and there are more NPC death knights all over the place. Think Sunwell isle, but within hours. The only PC death knights here are ones up to this part in the begining quests...

So that happens again, and more of the town is burning, and by the end, you totally mess every Scarlet Crusader up so much, the leader is like SHIT Y SO SRS? and says that the scarlet crusade has ended, and they will get their revenge in Northrend...cue the Scarlet Onslaught.

So that is cool.

The fight at Light's Hope is also cool, but really just a button mashing fest for 3 minutes until somehow we lose (we have 10,000 troops, and the good guys have 300...but when we get them under 200, we lose somehow...we still have over 9000 ghouls...i didnt get it)

I also dont understand the story about how we get away from the Lich King, yet, the guy who leads up (Morgraine) is still allowed in The Ebon Hold. I suspect after the last DK quest, he goes to Dalaran, but they need to keep another one of his NPC's in The Ebon Hold for the new death knights, since he is also a quest giver...we'll see. I think he is the leader of the 'Knights of the Ebon Blade" which I hear is in Dalaran.

I will leave you with a few more pictures, then I'm off to play more beta!

~Zuma

Opt-in pays off

Wrath of the Lich King™ Beta Test

You have been selected to participate in the beta test of World of Warcraft®: Wrath of the Lich King™. Welcome!

In the beta test you’ll get an opportunity to test the first zones of the new Northrend continent, and the new levels above 70. We look forward to your feedback on the overall experience, including quests, monsters, zones, aesthetics, and more. We would also appreciate reports on any bugs you may encounter. These can be logged using the /bug command explained below.

Getting started:

In order to participate in the beta test, you must upgrade an existing retail account that has been upgraded with The Burning Crusade®, allowing you to connect to the Wrath of the Lich King™ test realms. The World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade® game client that you use must be patched up to version 2.4.2 or later in order to install the beta test client.

Go to http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com and follow the detailed, step-by-step instructions to begin playing the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

Please be prepared to enter the current retail World of Warcraft account name and password you use, and the appropriate beta code listed below to authenticate your eligibility to connect to the Wrath of the Lich King test realms. To participate in the beta tests, you must have a valid retail World of Warcraft account active and in good standing as of July 15, 2008.

Below is a beta code that will allow you to upgrade a World of Warcraft account to be eligible for the Wrath of the Lich King beta test. Each beta code can be used only once to upgrade an active retail World of Warcraft account.

-=CODE WAS HERE=-

Please retain this email for your records. If you experience any issues setting up the beta account or accessing the test realms, please email Billing Support at wowbetabilling@blizzard.com.

Sending us feedback:

Typing /bug in chat will open an error reporting interface, and we encourage you to use it any time you encounter a problem or want to send us a suggestion.

---------------------------====================-------------------------===============----------

Thats the e-mail I got at 930pm tonight...and i'm almost done installing the WotLK client. Woo for 3 hours of downloading! >.>

And thanks bliz for messing up my blog font!
I'll take pics and post them with my thoughts of the beta! here I come Death Knight!

~Zumacrume

Smart Omega...now with visuals!

I started playing around with this late last night, and now I'm working on building a library of videos people like yours truly like to watch. Right now I am still in the testing phases, which means constant looping of a "storyboard" until I know what's going on. Hopefully in the future ill have some "live" broadcasts, taking in viewer feedback and showing what you want!

This also resparked my interest in torrenting as much as I can before I go back to living on campus, so i'll be working on getting movies and other sorts of videos for the broadcast.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy Smart Omega TV....It's a smarter way to internet.

~Zumacrume

EDIT:
There was a video at the top of this post. I removed it, and moved the video to the top right corner of the blog. That way, it would stay in one place on the page, and both videos wouldnt start at once, causing a severe headache for anyone listening. <3. enjoy!

Into the wee hours

3 posts in a day...that is pretty good.

So, to continue where I left off...physics test is on Friday...we had a review today, I have about 12 pages of material (only single sided) to study from. The professor said that everything we need to know for the test is on that review...so hopefully i'll be feeling confident by tomorrow night.

You may be asking yourself...sure, that is cool..this guy hates the dark knight, and he hates physics...but what does he like?

Well, in school, I like biology. I'm working on getting into graduate school and going on to get a PhD in immunology or bacterial pathology. Germs rule!

When I'm not in school, I'm playing video games, or watching tv, or watching movies. Me and my girlfriend Mariana are huge fans of LOST and battlestar galactica. Speaking of LOST, the Dharma initiative is looking for new volenteers to fill their ranks.

www.dharmawantsyou.com go sign up and change the world.

Most of the time i'll fill this blog with stuff regarding this stuff, although as my senior year goes by, i'll probably start complaining about the graduate school application process.

Fun right, I know!
~Zumacrume

V=IR, and other useless physical relations

So, I'm sorry for the rushed first post. Me and my girlfriend Mariana were at the school library, where she was printing out scientific papers to read as she researches where she wants to go to graduate school. When we were ready to leave, I tied up my post real fast. Actually, I should be doing the same thing she is doing...but all this summer physics nonsense is a lot more work than I thought it would be.

Yes, I am taking physics over the summer. Since it is the second session at my university, I'm in physics 2. Thats electricity, magnetism, and optics. fun. The first midterm is on Friday, and it's covering electricity and magnetism and DC circuits. Just so you know, I'm not quite ready for it. I just don't like physics, and all the studying just makes me feel like i'm going to do bad on the test. I got a B in the first session of physics...which isn't bad, since a lot of people that were in my lab got D's, but it isn't want I wanted, and I surely don't want anything less than a B in this session.

The school is trying to make everything fancy and online, but instead of doing it gracefully, they are doing it shittily: i'll explain. They want us to fill out and submit lab reports online. Okay, the students say...fine. I mean, we have to hand in a paper version of the lab report anyway, so it's basically like doing 2 lab reports instead of 1...but whatever. THEN the department magically loses the second lab information. So everyone has until the end of the summer semester to redo the second lab online. So now we are doing that one three times, instead of the already crappy enough 2 times per lab. Good right? Plus all the homeworks are online, and sometimes when you put in an answer with the wrong sign, and the computer will tell you 'your answer has the wrong sign'. okay, that's not bad, i'll just change the negative to a positive. But wait...when you submit that answer, it also has the wrong sign....is there a third sign I missed somewhere?


/rant off

thanks physics, how I love thee,
~Zumacrume

Smart Omega: The Begining...

So this is the blog I've been talking about for the past few weeks. Here is a quick and dirty introduction. I'm a biochemistry major going into my senior year of undergraduate school. I play a lot of video games. I like watching LOST and Battlestar Galactica (although I have not been up to date on the most recent season). I also like to see movies, and then like to say how much I hated them. This applies to Batman.

Actually, thats the reason why I wanted to make a blog. To express how much The Dark Knight sucked. I hope some of you out there realize that the hype was all because of Heath Ledgers death. I must admit, I had a good time finding Heath Ledger inspired "LOL WHERE R MAI PILLZ" lolcats, but once he was plenty dead and buried, I stopped caring. That is until batman came out. And everyone was amazed at the amazing performace of the Joker. Give me a break. He had a total of ~20 minutes of screen time, and okay, he was good, but not worth all the hype. Dear oscars...if you give Heath Ledger an oscar, I will continue to not watch you.

Thanks
~Zumacrume