Microscopic!

I used my birthday funds to buy a microscope...I can hardly contain my excitement. I know exams are less than 2 weeks away, but I just want to look at EVERYTHING! The first thing I looked at was a hair, which was even cooler because I taped it onto a slide and even the tape made these awesome little bubbles and ripples. I really want to look at blood, and I have a haemocytometer so I could even count cells, but I'll have to pluck up the courage to jab myself. 

In the meantime, I've emptied out a ton of tea lights and I'm going to use the tins as tiny petri dishes so I can start culturing things. Not terribly sterile, or large, but they'll do for now! If I end up incapacitated in the coming weeks, it will surely not be because I've decided to go for it and consume something I've cultured......for science!

I am trying to figure out how to get a good picture of what I can see, I have a trinocular head but no camera attachment. Hopefully I can figure something out, because even the strangest things, when looked at up close, are just so cool.

I've covered up the brand with a Firefly sticker, I knew that would come in handy one day. It's made by Omano though, and really quite good quality, I would certainly reccomend them. And it came with plan lenses (the best sort!). I am almost giggly with excitement; really, it's indecent. Anyway, that's enough for now, back to schoolwork for as long as I can resist the temptation to take another peek...!

The Season 3 Premiere of BBC's Sherlock

It's finally here! Just a few minutes and the wait will finally be over to find the secret to how Sherlock survived his fall 2 long years ago.

...For people in the UK, that is: those in the US and Canada will have to wait until the 19th to catch up, but if that's just not soon enough for you, you can go ahead and install Media Hint as a Chrome extension (all the instructions are on the page - very easy install, even for those that aren't all that tech-savvy) and head on over to the BBC iPlayer to watch the premiere of the third season, The Empty Hearse, directly after it airs.
In the meantime, check out the mini episode released on Christmas, or this interactive trailer, which offers an intriguing glance into what the future of TV on the web might look like.

Cheers!

Goram Kinder Surprise.

When I was younger, I used to love Kinder Surprise. The chocolate itself is pretty disappointing, but I cared more for the prize hiding inside. The toys themselves are admittedly rather useless, but you don't buy a 99 cent chocolate egg expecting a remote controlled helicopter or a transformer - it's the excitement of opening the egg to see what you've gotten and assembling the pieces, adding stickers, etc., to end up with your tiny creation, that is why they were so cool. Bonus if you actually like the plastic chocolate.

I'm not sure if it's because I've grown up and become a little disillusioned, or if Kinder Surprise has just stopped producing good toys, these new ones are honestly lame. Most of them you don't even get to build anymore, it's all one piece, along with a confusing illustration that usually involves a couple kids having a great time chucking their new bit of plastic at a wall, or trying to throw it at their friend's equally useless bit of plastic. Most of the time the thing that tells you how to play with your toy requires you to have a friend with a toy from the same set, meaning you both have to go buy eggs until you each have one, and then proceed to play what appears to be one of the most boring and pointless games ever conceived.

Just the other day, I walked into my the cafeteria at my University, and they had a bunch of Kinder Surprise eggs. Hoping for a tiny car or perhaps a many-pieced animal I bought one, only to find a little plastic yellow thing that vaguely resembles a lion, and these instructions:
Step 1: Find a friend unfortunate enough to get one of these amorphous animals as well. Put your toys on a table, then blow on them.
Step 2: If your toy falls over, you win. Congratulations.

Gee, what a thrilling time. Sounds easy enough, right? The only problem is, aside from the fact that I could have just as much fun blowing on rocks or bits of wood, I couldn't even get the darn thing to stand up in the first place.

Shown here: my lion sitting on its head. I guess I won...?

It seems like the only things that you are able to 'build' from modern Kinder Surprises are tiny 12 piece puzzles. Because kids just love puzzles, am I right? This is what happens when child safety goes so far as to suck the fun out of things. Whatever happened to the little toy cars and boats and dragons with 8 pieces and stickers? I miss my childhood, and I feel sorry for the kids growing up in today's world of plastic playgrounds and rounded edges.

I am addicted to typing games

93 words/minute
Here's the link if you want to try!

Granted, the words they use are I think some of the more commonly used words in the English language and they're presented randomly, without sentence structure, so you don't have to use much punctuation; still, it's a nice, quick test to at least give you an idea of whether you might need a personal secretary, or have a future as one.

Mutants, not zombies!

I grew up using Mavis Beacon teaches typing like it was a game, so don't feel too bad if I've destroyed your score. If you're interested in improving your speed with something that actually is a game, go for The Typing of the Dead: they took an old arcade shooter and replaced the gun with your keyboard. The words you have to type are pretty entertaining. Blood and curses abound, and the storyline is ... interesting, to say the least!

Cake Decorating

Yesterday was my 19th birthday, so really I should be posting pictures of all the alcohol I can now (legally, anyway) drink - but, in the spirit of celebration, here are some sweet cakes I've come across.

I can't imagine how long it must have taken to make this! So much fondant.

For some reason, I imagine this was made in Japan.

Snorlax cake! He's clearly the best pokemon, and I'm sure
he would make a delicious cake as well.

This one just made me giggle.

In Soviet Russia, cake eats you!

Alright so I snuck the last one in there, I made that one when I was a cake decorator at Dairy Queen during high school. I miss that job ... nothing better than coming home every day smelling of ice cream and chocolate. Unfortunately I completely lost interest in eating icing ever again - even smelling it makes me feel a little sick. I don't think ice cream will ever get old, thankfully.

Shaved Bieber

Results when searching with Shaved Bieber

Sick of Justin Bieber popping up everywhere you look? Well, you're in luck, because the people at the Free Art and Technology Lab have developed an addon for Firefox and Chrome users that blocks out all Justin Bieber content for your surfing pleasure! Download here:
Firefox
Chrome

Barrarror Pancake

Well this is just straight up adorable. Why won't my cat barrel roll?? Obviously it's defective...

Face Composites

I thought this was pretty neat. These are the faces of a large sampling of women from various countries, mashed together to make one image that is an 'average face' for each country. I do wish they had done Canada and the US as well - it would be interesting to see how they relate to each other, and to England, France, Spain etc.

Face composites - click for fullview

Catwoman Cast for New Batman Movie

Anne Hathaway, Cast to play Catwoman in
The Dark Knight Rises

So, apparently Anne Hathaway has just been cast to play Selina Kyle (Catwoman) in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. I'm pretty excited to see Catwoman come into the picture, but I'm not sure about how well Hathaway will be able to play her...to me, she just seems too sweet/silly to be able to live up to the high expectations fans will have of Catwoman (especially after the painful travesty that was Halle Berry's version...I don't have anything against her acting, but that was hard to watch).

I guess we'll have to wait and see; she might just be amazing, who knows. I think by this point we can at least trust Christopher Nolan to produce something worth watching, and if he believes in an Anne Hathaway Catwoman then so will I.

Russian People

One of my electives is Russian and the textbook, while helpful in the learning-the-language sense, has some of the most ridiculously terrible pictures I have ever seen. For example, here is an artist's depiction of the average Russian person, saying hello to a friend or teaching a class:

Yup. They look somewhat like large, blocky monkeys. And the real people aren't much better:

 

This is only chapter 1; I have so much more to look forward to! I would be a little more forgiving if this textbook was from 20 years ago, but it's the newest version, published fairly recently.

My teacher is pretty darn attractive, so maybe the only people they could find for this book were the ones they normally don't let out of Russia.

The Green Hornet

I'm home from University for the weekend, so I managed to convince my parents to take me to dinner and a movie. We saw The Green Hornet in 3D, and while I went in not knowing what to expect (not having seen the TV series or read any of the comics), I came out much the same. It was a strange mix of a comedy and a superhero movie, although it wasn't a spectacular example of either genre. I suppose that a good comedy/superhero movie could be made, but in this case I was extremely underwhelmed. The plot was predictable, the villain was pretty lame, and the comedy often felt forced, and never made me laugh out loud. I'm not saying it was terrible, it was somewhat entertaining, just not spectacular. I'll have to find some people who are more familiar with The Green Hornet and see how they liked it ... for all I know they could have hit the nail right on the head. Although were that the case, I can't imagine finding many true fans out there...

USBs for everyone!

It seems that things seem be tending more and more towards personalized, individualized everything - do you like Batman? Have this Batman coffee mug, a Batman watch and some Batman underwear, a toothbrush, a pillow cover, maybe even a shirt or two. A licence plate and phone cover, so people will know you're cool and unique, before you've ever been introduced. No personalized laptop cover? WHO ARE YOU?

If your urge to identify yourself by your belongings happens to extend even to the smallest of objects, I present to you this list of fully functional USB sticks, from the gold-plated to the profane.

 At a meagre $3500 for this gold-plated, diamond studded stick, this
1 GB USB is simply a steal. I really hope it's easy to swap out the insides,
considering the speed at which technology is advancing, but I suppose if
you've got $3500 to blow on one of these you don't care too much anyway.

We all know what's going to be stored on this.

This will actually work with normal lego pieces, which is neat if you're
a spy with children.

The 'thumb' drive, har har. More than a little bit disturbing, but hey, it comes
with an in-built joke.

In case you prefer fidgeting with your data instead of using it, a transformer USB stick.

These will actually glow when you plug them in. Are you a Jedi, or a Sith?

A burger, you ask? What do burgers have to do with computer storage?
Absolutely nothing, I respond.

In case you're ever on Jeopardy, USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. Recently, the storage of these tiny devices have expanded exponentially, to the point where they can now hold over 1 TB of data. Perhaps soon human heads will come ready-equipped with USB 3.0 ports.

Watchmen Condoms

I stumbled upon these recently, and I thought they were pretty funny. Bright blue, just like Dr. Manhattan. I can only imagine the colour they might turn your penis. I believe they were given out as a promotional item before Watchmen came out in 2009.
I wonder if they make condoms based on other superheroes or movies; I'd personally enjoy some Star Wars light saber condoms, or  perhaps a blocky Minecraft one.

Troll 2

Truly one of the worst bad movies of all time, in my opinion. 2 out of 10 stars on IMDB already tells you this is going to be a winner. Everything from the main character getting up onto the table and peeing on the food at a family dinner to the corn love scene (as in a sex scene involving corn, and no, I'm not joking), to the fact that while this movie is called 'Troll,' there are in fact no trolls in the movie, but goblins, makes this movie so laughably terrible that it has become a cult classic. I saw it in live action along with the movie about a year ago, and it was just so ridiculously bad that I couldn't help but laugh, though seeing it without the acting and the rest of the audience would not, I'm sure, have been near as much fun. My parents were kind enough to get it for me for Christmas, and oh, how they have rued that decision ever since. Being in some state of intoxication while watching is highly recommended.

Here's the timeless sex scene, in case you're interested:

Nilbog backwards is Goblin? Oh my Goooooooood

Poll: Best Superhero

Best Superhero

Who do you think it is? Obviously I'm a little biased towards the DC universe, but I've tried to include some Marvel characters as well. If you vote other, comment who it is, and why you think anyone could possibly beat Batman!

Total Lunar Eclipse Tonight

For the first time since February of 2008, there will be a total lunar eclipse visible in North and South America starting tonight around midnight EST, with the best viewing time being around 1:30 a.m. (A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth moves between the sun and the moon, and they line up perfectly so that the shadow of the Earth completely obscures the moon; it can only happen when there is a full moon). Fun fact: this eclipse also occurs on the Winter Solstice, and it's the first time these two events have coincided in over 350 years.
Good excuse to smoke some weed, listen to Pink Floyd and ponder life? I think so!

Humble Indie Bundle

Games included are Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium,

Osmos, and Revenge of the Titans.

Being the poor university student that I am, I try to find discounts wherever I can; that's why, when I heard that the Humble Indie Bundle is currently available for the second year running, I jumped right on it. In this bundle, there are 5 awesome indie games (normally an $85 value), but for a limited time you can choose what you want to pay for them. The cool thing is, you can also choose how much of the money you want to go to the developers, how much should go to charity, etc. They're available on any OS, and you can install and reinstall them on any computer you want to once you've bought them (they give you a permanent download link); it's a great deal for some really cool games, and at the same time you're helping to support charity. Check it out at here!

New Tron Legacy Soundtrack

The new soundtrack is amazing. The soundtrack for the original Tron was actually composed and performed by Wendy Carlos, who, if you don't know anything about her, also did the soundtracks for A Clockwork Orange and the Shining, among others - Daft Punk had a lot to live up to. They certainly took their sweet time making it, but the result is undoubtedly worth it. It sounds somewhat like an electronic version of the Batman soundtrack, and it fits seamlessly with the movie, really enhancing the video game-like atmosphere. Admittedly, some of the tracks do get somewhat repetitive, but overall I would say it's a definite success (it stood out for me more than the movie, which wasn't bad in itself). Also look out for Daft Punk themselves in the movie, where they have a cameo appearance as DJs at the 'End of the Line' nightclub.

The Wand Ownership Problem

If you're a devoted Potter fan like me, you will probably be aware of the wand ownership problem. If you're not, here is a quick overview (spoiler alert if you haven't finished the series): throughout most of the 7th book, Voldemort is searching for a wand that will be able to overpower Harry's, because their wands will not fight each other (although this is not, as he suspected, because of the twin cores, but because the part of soul that is in Harry that Voldemort is unaware of refuses to fight with any soul that still remains in Voldemort's body). He eventually takes the elder wand (a wand which is supposedly unbeatable that will win in any duel, though that raises other issues, like the fact that Dumbledore beat Grindelwald in a duel to get the wand in the first place), but he finds that it doesn't work as well as he had thought that it would; since Snape killed Dumbledore, Voldemort believes that the 'true' ownership of the wand would have passed to him, and so he kills him. If you look carefully at everything that happens on top of the Astronomy Tower however, it is clear that Malfoy disarms Dumbledore using Expelliarmus before Snape comes up and kills him, meaning that the true ownership of the elder wand passed to Malfoy, and later to Harry when he disarmed Malfoy.

Looking at this sequence of events, we should conclude that 1. The Expelliarmus spell is enough to transfer ownership of a wand, and 2. It doesn't seem to matter when the actual disarming happens, or if the wand that is taken is the wand in question; the ownership of ALL wands owned by the disarmed person will be transferred. We know this because Malfoy disarms Dumbledore near the end of the 6th book, just before the beginning of the summer, and it is over 6 months later (sometime after Christmas) that Harry disarms Malfoy, transferring the ownership of the elder wand to him (when the elder wand itself is, in fact, hundreds of miles away in Dumbledore's tomb; Harry takes only Malfoy's original wand, but this disarming apparently transfers the ownership of all wands that he himself has disarmed). However, if this is true, this also means that half of the people in Dumbledore's Army do not have true ownership of their wands, since Expelliarmus is the very first spell that Harry ever teaches them in the 5th book, and they then split into pairs and practice disarming. It has already been shown that just the use of the spell Expelliarmus is enough to transfer ownership, so it follows logically that every time a member of the DA practiced the spell, they either took ownership of their partner's wand, or they took ownership of their partner's wand and they took back ownership of their own.

JK Rowling has addressed this issue by saying something like 'It was just practice, they didn't really mean it, so their wands didn't actually transfer ownership' which is, in my opinion, a rather weak defence. It is a very long, complicated, inter-related series, so a few mistakes are expected, and JKR has made surprisingly few, but this is a big one. Even if she can explain away the practice sessions as 'not really meaning it', there are numerous other examples of disarmings, the most notable being in the third book when both Harry and Hermione, at the same time, cast Expelliarmus at Snape while in the Shrieking Shack; there is no way that you can say that they didn't mean it, or that it was only practice, which means that Severus Snape's wand never reached its full potential after that moment, because its true allegiances lay with Harry and Hermione.

I am Batgirl.

Exams are almost over, so I figured I would start a blog on the things I love most - namely, Harry Potter, comic books, video games, and other such fine things. I am 18 years old and live in Canada; I have purple hair and a lip ring, more because I became bored with blonde and bland than a true streak of rebelliousness. I am currently attending the University of Waterloo for my undergrad in Honours Science, which basically means I have no idea what I want to do with my life, so I'm taking a little bit of everything until I happen to figure that out. Maybe I never will, but in the meantime I'm going to enjoy my time to the best that I can.