Welcome to Earth Lucas!

(Banner and balloons thanks to KJAMBD)

It’s so nice to meet you. Sorry about all the snow and the minus 20°C. I promise it will get much nicer soon. Hey think of it this way, at least you’ll have one more day to look forward to in February than most of us.

We do really have quite a nice planet here, I’m sure you’ll love it even though it’s probably not nearly as nice as what you’re used to. For the first while, the food is nutritious but can get a little “didn’t I have this for breakfast and for dinner last night too,” but when you get a bit older there is much more variety I assure you. There are so many things to learn and do, I hope you take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way. You have an awesome family who love you and will help you as much as they can along the way. I wish you all the best in the life you began just today.

Happy Birthday Lucas! This first one is a freebee, next time around the count up begins.

Love,
Uncle Lorin

2009 OSCARS - In Memoriam

So it's Sunday night and I just couldn't find any good WWE, Ultimate Fighting To The Death matches, ( I think that's the one where two guys are in a cage and the winner has to knock the other guy out and then kick him in the head until at least five teeth or one eyeball falls out) or even a Michael Bay movie on TV. I was therefore pretty much forced to watch the OSCARS which I reluctantly (cough) did.

I'm not here to do a review of the show or comment on who won what or who didn't. Overall I thought things went well with the one glaring exception of the segment where they pay tribute to some who have passed away in the previous year. What they have always done in the past is show the video feed directly to us but this year apparently they wanted to show off all the flat screen monitors they had going in the building and had the camera pan and zoom while the camera man was being chased around the room by a pack of wild dogs, or so it seemed. The ridiculous camera work rendered many of the names and faces unreadable and unrecognizable, was disrespectful and ultimately a big fat train wreck even if you don't ask me.

Luckily someone with access to the original video, not what was broadcast to all of us, has posted it on YouTube. So just in case you were frustrated like me, care at all, or are just a bit curious, here is the segment the way it should have been shown in the first place.

The Selfish Giant

It seems I overestimated people's familiarity with the story of The Little Match Girl a few posts ago. So now I have another old nostalgic animated tale to share with you and I hope that this one is at least a bit more familiar to everyone. It's called The Selfish Giant. This one is definitely not done by Disney which becomes obvious when watching it. It used to be shown on TV every year or so but I haven't seen it for many years which is too bad. I wonder if you remember seeing it at all. It's about 25 minutes long and is split into three parts on YouTube. Here they are:





I still have my copy of the book that mom gave me many years ago.

For Your Eyes Only

Below is a link to a rather plain web page and the start of simple yet difficult game called "The eyeballing game", hence the title of this post. You can use only your eyes to play the game and, may I add, any inferring done on your part that you may have been about to become privy to any sort of top secret information or spy grade communications whatever must unfortunately be deemed wishful thinking.

You are asked to manipulate seven images to obtain the desired result. These tasks will be repeated twice more, slightly modified, for a total of 21 attempts. When you have finished, it will show you your average score and how your score compares to all others who have played.

My best score is 3.22

So, are you up for it?
Be sure to come back and tell me how badly you beat me.

Game on!

The Eyeballing Game