Yes, it’s that special time… when it’s 01:02:03 on 04/05/06… Although some people claim that this is a big deal - I am more looking forward to 12:34:56 7/8/90 or 01:23:45 6/7/89… or maybe even some other special time…

How did you celebrate?

Biathlon: Coolest Olympic Sport Biathlon, unfortunately, doesn’t sound like it is a cool sport. It doesn’t involve sequen-bedazzled skaters doing triple axles while wearing short skirts like Men’s figure skating does - and it doesn’t involve lazy stoners flipping themselves in crazy ways like Olympic Halfpipe does - but it does have something that no other sport has. It has guns.

Biathlon has guns.
In Biathlon they ski around a course and shoot targets (they have 4 to shoot at at each station - two standing, two prone). If they miss a target, they have to do a “penalty lap” around a little oval off to the side of the shooting area. The targets are incredibly small, and the athletes are incredibly accurate: the winners often go the entire race without missing a single target.

I want to see a Summer Olympics Biathlon - with handguns
I want to see a Summer Olympics Biathlon - with runners and handguns. To make it even more difficult - the target would be on a track so that they would be constantly moving - and the runners hand to turn and shoot them on the run. Sure, it would be a difficult thing to do - but if you make a Gold medal in that category and some country will devote a lot of resources to being the top “run and gun” country in the world. (Kind of like South Korea and Short track speedskating)

Eliminate the “no shooting each other” rule
The only problem with Biathlon is the lack of threat from competitors. They should have some special qualifying round (like a blindfolded shooting round or something) where the winner of that round gets a special designation. A “License to kill” if you will. This person, when they are headed towards the finish line - had the ability to use his rifle for more than target practice - and can down the guy in front of him if he needs to. I think that would make the games much more interesting than they currently are - with everyone toting guns but nobody shooting them. It also would not cause the anarchy that giving everyone the ability to shoot whenever they want too would. Maybe they could use paintball to try to cut down on fatalities, I don’t know. These are issues for the IOC to work out.

technorati tags: Biathlon, Olympics, Torino, violence, shooting

Apple recently filed a trademark application for the name “Mac Pro” - indicating that the future Macs might no longer be called “PowerMacs” - but “Mac Pros”. Although this name sounds much better than their MacBook Pro debacle - there is still the unresolved issue of what to do with the consumer machines.

When the “MacBook Pro” name was dropped on the public like a ten-pound pile of horse manure, people thought “Well, that makes sense - they can call the intel iBooks the ‘MacBook’ and have continuity in their line.” This logic, however, would also mean that if Apple called their professional-grade Mac’s the “Mac Pro” that they would then call their consumer grade macs simply “Mac.” This would mean that Apple would be slapping their biggest brand on one of their cheapest products - all by itself. No “Mac Junior” or “Mac Cheap” - just simply “Mac.” It is highly unlikely that Apple will do this.

I believe that the biggest delay in pushing out more intel-based machines is this dilemma over the name. I have the solution. Call the professional ones the “Pro” and the consumer ones the “Po” - for the “po folk”. This would help distinguish the high-end computers from the low-end ones, and give people with the extra money more reasons to buy the “Pro” (nobody who can afford not to would want to buy the “Po”) In addition, the use of ebonics in the brand naming strategy can help them sieze the lucrative African-American market - which spends twice as much time online as the caucasian market.

Here’s how the naming strategy would go:

• MacBook Pro - for “professionals” that want slower machines with less features than they can get in a G4 PowerBoook.
• MacBook Po - for “the rest of us” who want even less features than you can get in a MacBook Pro
• Mac Pro - for the “professionals” who need affirmation that they really are “pro’s” in their field
• Mac Po - for people who only use a computer to play Nanosaur and read email

They could have an add campaign with a bunch of homeless people using computers, with the caption “Think Po”… They could have TV spots starring well known poor people (okay, they would have to find well known poor people, but they’re Apple. They can convince people that not having a screen on a music player is a lifestyle decision - they can find famous poor people.)

If anyone would like to make a few mock ads for this “Think Po” campaign - or maybe come up with what you think the form factor for the “MacBook Po” would look like - feel free to submit them to me

Early Disappointment

Ever since I saw the keynote address, I wanted Tiger for one reason: The three way video chat. I mean: Just imagine being able to video conference with both my parents and my sisters at the same time? Of course, when Tiger came out we all soon realized that they failed to mention in that keynote that in order to participate in a 3-way video chat, you had to have a G4 processor > 1 Ghz - and in order to host a conference you had to have a dual 1+ GHz G4.

Finally Possible

When my dad upgraded his computer to a quad-processor G5, and cascaded his dual 1.25 GHz G4 down to me, the 3-way video conferencing was within our grasps. After nearly a year of waiting, we could finally use our expensive novelties iSights to talk to more than one person! Boy were we in for a surprise. (Pictures on next page)
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Recently, three of my past roommates have started blogs. (And yes, I’m still waiting for Paul Cuff to start one)… On my friend’s blogs, you can read about exciting life events.

Pace has this to share about married life:

#1: Life is better when you’re married! Joy made me a cheescake with chocolate topping…. why? because I asked her to! Isn’t that great!? I mean if I were single I’d have to take her to a movie or make out with her or something like that before she would make me an amazing dessert.

Jason McGowan has his blog up and running now. Along with random news, he has a post about how to waste $700 advertising at BYU.

On Yancy’s blog, you can read about what he was thinking about on Sunday. I say you can read about it because I looked at it and the post looked really long so I said to myself, “That’s nice Yancy. My attention span is short, so I will not read your entry.”

Today is the first day of class for the winter semester. Right now, I am in my first class - Geology 101 - and am being bombarded by a review of some basic concepts of science.

It has been a long time since I have been in a 100 level general-ed class. This is the biggest class I have been in for a while - looks like 60 people are in this class. That stinks, because I was planning to eventually get detailed answers to questions I have about the geology of different climbing areas. That likely won’t happen in a class this size.

100 level classes are all about memorizing basic facts and multiple-choice tests. My professor is a good lecturer, so it should be an enjoyable process.

If any of you loyal readers need Geo 101, register for section 3 and we can have geo parties together. (if you can’t register online, don’t worry - he’s signing everyone’s add/drop cards.)

Today is Christmas eve. I am still with my inlaws and participating in their family traditions. One of them took place this morning - the family basketball game.

Basketball has never really been my game, and my 3% shooting while we were warming up helped me realize that it is still not my game. I mostly stuck to defense and setting picks against my 6-foot-9 brother-in-law. I think I dribbled once.

We are now at the movie theater waiting to see the Chronicles of Narnia. This theater redefines ghetto. It’s not bad, considering we are here on matinee price ($4 - and if you need help figuring out how much it would cost for 9 people, they have a chart. I know because I saw the guy using it.)

The movie is about to start, unless the roof caves in on is, or the in-window air-conditioner that they have protruding from the wall falls on us.

due to limited internet access, I will only be able to post updates every once in a while. Fortunately for you, this was one of those times.

Elementary School Band concert: afterthoughts

As you may have already realized, last night I went to a concert public performance of an elementary school band. two of the performers in the band were my young brother-in-laws. Here are some of the hilights of the evening:

• the 4th graders playing jingle-bells
• the 4th graders playing an encore of jingle bells immediately after having played it the first time. (I was careful how much I clapped after that)
• the entire audience clapping to the beat (under the influence of the conductor) and the drummers almost managing to keep time.
• the school principal dressing up like an old goose and making quacking noises.
• some teacher dessing up like Santa and skateboarding across the stage behind the chorus.
• waking up to the drumline part, not knowing how much I slept through
• realizing it must have been a lot
• the afterparty

I had forgotten that kids play in bands, and that those bands perform in public. I can hardly wait for our little one to start rocking out.

I found out Sunday night that Microsoft isn’t going to hire me. My recruiter was nice enough to at least slightly personalize my rejection letter - and use words such as “regret” and “unfortunately” incorrectly - but at least politely.

I knew all along that Microsoft’s hiring process was going to be more a gentle form of hazing than an objective selection process (although I treated it very seriously - as if it really were objective) - but I thought that would work to my advantage. I may not have been fast enough in coming up with a correct solution in the third interview - but I think the biggest factor contributing to my demise was that my last interviewer and I didn’t click well. Oh well. (From what I hear, all it takes is one guy not liking you for you to not get hired)

I was thinking of solving the problem my second interviewer asked me (one that is as-of-now still unsolved) as my capstone project, and then patenting the solution. I would do this for two reasons. First, I need a good capstone project that will keep me motivated. Second, I could start making small cubes for myself that say “Thank you from yourself” and put them next to my computer. Then I would have almost all of the benefits of working for Microsoft (the cubes for patents) in the privacy of my own home.

In all seriousness, if Microsoft were to call me up in the future I would still consider working there - but I’m probably not going to pursue them again on my own. (Certainly not under the College Recruiting scheme)

For now, I will just rely on CareerBuilder.com with Over 1.3 Million Jobs Available