Married to the Sea

Too long, much too long. Have I shown you guys this yet? It's a webcomic called Married to the Sea, and it's done by a married couple (who each have their own comic) from Columbus, Ohio. It's sometimes very funny and other times a little too vulgar, but all in all a good read. They take old 19th and early 20th century drawings and put funny words next to them. Catherine could never get over this one, but others might be just as effective. I once suspected Lyndsey and her husband, but they are either great at playing dumb or had no idea what I was talking about.

I've got to send shoutouts to all the people who have accomplished a great deal at this time. Proud graduates from accredited universities. Talya, Catherine, Katie, and Jess are all graduated or will soon from each of their institutions, and I'm very proud of all of them for their efforts. Hooray for learning and degrees and lawyers and college! Hooray!

Photos for You

I finally uploaded the interesting photos from the Darfur Rally and my haircut. I even chose to show my ugly mug (there's a warning for all of you). I put the pictures on Flickr because there are more than I'd like to put here. So here are the links, I hope they work.
Darfur Rally
My Haircut

I'm a little frustrated with Flickr's options for how to organize the presentation of my photos, but whatever. Sorry if you don't like my haircut or face. There's nothing I can do about what I was born with.

The Electronics Entertainment Expo is currently going on and there's some pretty exciting stuff going on for nerdy people. Like a Halo 3 trailer, and some Nintendo Wii game previews. There was also a new technology that maps a person's face for sports games, and the example that EA used was a model of Tiger Woods that was disturbingly real. Anyway, it led me to what might be my new obsession, Uncanny Valley.

Uncanny Valley, if you don't want to read for yourself, is when robotic or animated "humans" reach a point where their likeness is so close that it creates a jarring effect because we can tell that there is something that's just not right with it. This is mostly in CG movies, like Toy Story. The toys look real because they look like animated toys. But the people look weird. Anyway, it's a fascinating concept that I knew, but didn't know it had a name. Some choice quotes from the Wiki article:
"Pixar stated that the reason for stylizing the characters in The Incredibles was not due to an inability to make the characters more realisitic, but an attempt to avoid the Uncanny Valley."

"Erotic sequences with Uncanny Valley characters, as featured in Final Flight [of the Osiris, from the Animatrix], are particularly disturbing, since they provide conflicting messages of 'this is arousing' and 'this is non-human'." Dwell on that.

Where is the Router Plug?

I can't upload all the pictures from the rally yet because people are moving in right now and we haven't gotten the internet situation figured out just yet. However, as soon as I can, I will. It was a great time in D.C., although all the museums closed before the rally ended. And I have to tell you that I cut my hair. I donated about 11 or so inches of hair to Locks of Love while I was home because the time had finally arrived. It was actually harder than I thought, which is weird because it's why I grew my hair out in the first place. I'll be sure to show you all the pictures from that also. Soon.

May 9th is Nintendo's E3 press conference, where we'll finally learn the secrets to their new console, the Wii (no, I'm serious. It's pronounced "We").