April 2009 Archives

The latest Web 2.0 craze of Twitter has been sweeping across the Internet recently.  Giving continually updates about your life in less than 140 words just is not that appealing to me, and I tend to side with the fellow Twitter skeptic in the video below:

However, my opinion of Twitter has changed after the announcement by my favorite band Switchfoot that the band had recorded 4 albums of over 80 songs that it will be releasing one by one.  The first album will be called Hello Hurricane and will be released this September.  Switchfoot made this announcement on its Twitter account.  Knowledge has always been power, but the source of knowledge is information.  Through using Twitter, bands and other public figures can speak directly to their fans and the public without the filter of a middleman like TMZ.  I believe that using Twitter in this way is a great idea.  However, don't expect up to the minute updates of my life from me any time soon.  My life just isn't that exciting.  Well, at least not yet...

The Somali pirates have been in the news due to the recent attacks on American ships and hostage situation.  These pirates are not the ones who don't do anything, and this time, their attack was aimed towards Chinese merchant ships.  However, according to China, the attack was blocked on the account of dolphins.  Here is the excerpt from the article:

The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China's fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China's.

The suspected pirates ships stopped and then turned away. The pirates could only lament their littleness before the vast number of dolphins. The spectacular scene continued for a while.

As shown by this article and countless times in recorded history, dolphins have been the rightful guardians of justice of the open seas.  The classic example of the heroics of these noble animals occurred in the epic sea battle when a Penguin commanded submarine was trying to take down the Batboat.  The submarine launched a rocket that ran silent and deep and was destined to take down the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder.  However, the sacrifice of a dolphin had saved the lives of the two crime fighters.  We will always remember that every life has a greater porpoise.

The semester is winding down at Penn State, and with three weeks left, I am already done with a class!  In my ART 002 class, my team has just finished up our group paper on animation.  To check it out, click here!  ART 002 and ART 003 were great classes to take and have increased my comfort level with HTML in addition to fulfilling my general art requirement for my major.

After I came back from my evening run and visit to the gym, I turned on my television and watched a segment on the famous Disney movie Mary Poppins.  In the movie, the two children and the father are at the bank, and the father and bankers are trying to convince the father's son to invest in the bank.  The father and the banker try to coax the money out of the boy through singing the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank song, but the elder banker has to pry the coin from the boy.  The song for me at least encapsulates very nicely the current economic situation: "as the banks of England fall, so does England."

Over the past couple of months, I have been sporadically looking for sources that can help me in my quest to write a honors thesis paper about Batman and technology.  On YouTube, I have found an animated Batman episode from the 1960s where the Penguin uses a crime supercomputer in order to finally outsmart Batman and Robin.  While this source may not make the cut, it is good for a nice pick me up.  I always love how computers meet their demise in cartoons.....