Wii!!

Okay, so in case nobody has told you yet, the coolest video game system in the world is a Nintendo Wii. Believe me, I thought I had burnt through any interest I could ever again hold in computer or video games in high school where wolfenstein, doom, and playstation pretty much occupied any time I did not already have devoted to something active. But I was wrong. Way wrong.

The Wii uses remote controller via bluetooth that senses and projects direction, as well as senses three dimensional motion and acceleration. If you though it was hard enough to hit a golf ball straight in real life, try setting your swing level to "difficult" in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08. The first two times I played baseball I threw out my right arm, and the first time I made it through 3 rounds of boxing I threw out my left arm. Even non sports games are so much better because of the interactive abilities the remote style allows games to integrate into actions. Out of bullets while fighting virus infected zombies? Start swinging. Need to hug a wall to avoid being spotted by terrorists? Swing yourself around, remote in hand. Now any of the actions can be done by flipping your wrist in the sitting position, but come on... how fun is that?

I am a MASTER!

After a lot of work and a lot of stress and just about twice that to simply get my thesis submitted, I finally got my Master's degree in Physics! Wow, finally! Just thought I'd let you all know.

I must be an idiot to still be in school.

My New Best Friend

So as you may know from our family site we have a new dog (a great dane nonetheless) named Apollo. He is, at once, the most loyal and disobedient dog I have ever owned. 4 years old at the time we got him, means he doesn't like a whole lot of change. Well, his previous life has mostly consisting of his doing pretty much what he wanted in a yard where he was completely separated from the other dogs because they beat him up. His new life consists of a list of rules and expectations.

This dog will not leave my side, will not allow anything to come near me that he percieves as dangerous, and does not want to do anything he thinks I'm am telling him to do. At first he thought it was okay, but when it turned out that I was going to give certain commands and always expect him to do obey things got dicey.

At first he would just look at me to acknowledge that he heard, and that he clearly understood. Then he would go back to doing what he wanted to do. This was most evident in learning the yard boundary. While on a leash of any kind he was pretty good, but when we tried to build a little trust with him off of a leash he made it clear that I was stupid and he was going exploring. Lucky for he's not the brightest dog and he doesn't know that he could out run me if he wanted to. After chasing him down and putting him in an alpha about ten times he finally started coming around. Believe me putting a 4 year old great dane in an alpha role is not an easy thing (especially since he was not trained that way to start).

The most stubborn lesson was sitting. To really drill it it I was making him sit at every street corner along his walk. When he decided to see if he could outlast me, I started sweeping his back legs (this is much better than pushing down on the dog's back). Well, that surprised him a little and he didn't like it so he started doing a little better until he realized that I wasn't really putting any effort into. When he caught onto that he started bracing himself so that I wouldn't sweep his legs. Well, that really got my attention. So the next time he disobeyed and braced himself I really wound up. I knocked his back legs out so fast he scooted on his bum for an inch or two. It stunned him enough that he didn't know what to do for a second. Then he continued on as if nothing had happened, but he sat down everytime after that for the rest of that walk. I only had to do it once or twice more before he realized that everytime I said "sit" I meant it.

Now that we've had him for a couple months he settled down into how things run at our house. He's kind of a grumpy stubborn dog anyway, but I think we'll keep him.

Tinkle Tinkle

Little K, my daughter, loves to sing. In fact she know nearly two dozen songs and she is almost always singing one of them. Near the top of her list is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", but in her little voice it's really "Tinkle Tinkle..." so on that note (pun intended)

Tinkle Tinkle Little Star
I wonder just how full you are
When you go it starts to rain
But somehow you don't leave a stain
Tinkle Tinkle Little Star
It's nice to go where'er you are.