by on YouTube

I just saw this commercial and then found this video of Ellen making fun of it. So great. Oh and lets try and go to her show around Christmas time next year. She gives away awesome things.

Kim Peek - The Real Rain Man [1/5] by godtammet on YouTube

On December 19th, 2009 the world lost the person who held what was possibly the greatest mind to have ever existed. Exactly how his brain functioned was never fully understood and now it will remain a mystery forever. Or at least until another "Rain Man" appears.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 1 of 7) by RedLetterMedia on YouTube

If you have some time to waste, watch this. The narrator is hilarious. I love the decay of the word "protagonist" throughout the video. I've only seen the first of 7, maybe I'll get around to the others later.

So my final for my problem solving class was to come up with a problem of our own. I couldn't decide on just one, so I made two.

Here they are if anyone wants to take a crack at them, although I don't expect anyone besides Chris to. However, Chris, I told you the answers so you don't get to play.




Problem 1:

Consider a row of 101 urns. Each urn can contain a maximum of 1 ball and has a number on it noting the total number of balls between it and its two neighboring urns. The first two are labeled with the number 2 and the last two are labeled with the number 2. There is only one more urn labeled with the number 2 and all the rest are labeled with the number 1. What is the likeliness that the 48th urn contains a ball?

A. 100%
B. 0%
C. 33%
D. 50%

Problem 2:


Two circles, one situated inside the other, create a ring. A chord of the outer circle, tangent to the inner circle, has length 2sqrt(19). The difference of the two circles’ radii is 1. How many circles, tangent to both the inner and outer circles, can fit inside the ring without overlapping?

A. 56
B. 57
C. 58
D. 59

Yesterday I went to Disneyland with my siblings for something called Mouse Adventure.
I didn't know much about it going into it except that it's like puzzles and stuff.
I found out that it's a secret society of Disney freaks who are literally insane.
Also, it was a lot of fun. This thing isn't put on or sponsored by Disney, it's
just some people that get together and make puzzles that other people
pay them money to try and solve them in order to win bragging rights.

It poured the entire day, and as dumb as wanting a pair of rain boots is for a
southern Californian it would have been the perfect thing to have that day. I
was walking in a puddle the entire day, even if the ground was fairly dry, and
my jeans got soaked up to my knees. Other than that my beanie, coat, and
scarf kept my body dry and warm.

So we had to get there between 9 and 10 to check in at the
Paradise Pier Hotel. They gave us the rules and stuff and
then we went off to the park to check in with the person who
gives us our quests.

This was the holiday version of Mouse Adventure
so most of the quests were holiday based. Here's
a list of the quests and what we had to do for them:

12 Days of Christmas:
For this quest there was 12 different types of things on main street
and as many of those things as the number. For example we had
to find the 12 signs in the emporium windows, the 11 names on
windows behind the fruit vendor, and so on. That totaled to 78
items/names which we then had to find in a crossword puzzle.
The letters that were not used in the crossword then spelled out
our question. The solution to the quest was the answer to the question.

Christmas Lights: We had to go to Critter Country, match up pictures
of lights with the real thing, figure out what the color f the missing lights
were, then use that knowledge to decode a question we then had to answer.

I Spy: there was pictures of things ranging from easy things to find to
really hard things to find. We had to write down the locations of them
for pts. There was also another similar quest which was finding the
locations of certain red lights that Rudolph took pictures of.

Small World Crossword: there was a list of questions about parts of the ride
of small world. We had to ride the ride and answer the questions. Then use
the letters in the colored areas of the crossword to unscramble the words that
made up the question we had to answer. The answer was Sylvania.

Haunted Halloween: We had to ride the Haunted Mansion and answer
questions about the nightmare before christmas decorations that were in
it. Then a number was noted for each answer and we had to take those
number letters in the word and form our question.

New Orleans Christmas: We had to identify the locations of certain
decorations in new orleans square by writing down which store or
restaurant they were on. Then we used the numbers noted by the
pictures to use those letters in the words to form our question.

Christmas Fantasy Parade: Answer questions on the Christmas parade.
The answers then told you to eliminate a banner. The banners were along
the parade route. The banner left over was our answer.

Mrs. Clause's Garden: We had pictures of 11 plants
found in Disneyland, 10 of which were found in Tomorrowland.
We had to identify the one that was not found in Tomorrowland.

Mele Kalikimaka: We had to use the tiki masks
around the Tiki Room as an alphabet to decode
a question. About the Tiki Room decorations

Very Merry Trivia: Disney trivia.

Christmas Wrapping: It was one of those puzzles
where it says. X gave a present to Y but Y didnt
receive from X... And you have to use the info to
figure out who gave and received from Tigger.

Prep and Landing: We had to count things in Toon Town and
then following a map and directions stop at different locations.
The locations were marked on a map with certain letters. Going
to the places in the right order gave us the letters to spell out our question.

As you can see it was pretty long and intense. The
game ended at 6pm and it took us the entire time
to do everything and we didnt finish 2 of them.
The time went by so fast and it was a lot of fun.
I'd definitely do it again.
Does anyone have a lot of Disney knowledge and/or an interest in doing this with me?

Dear Webtape,

I'm sorry I haven't been using you much lately. I feel as if you've become more of a forum for my friends and I to talk and share things in than a place for me to record my life. This makes me feel as if when I write blogs I am writing for them, my friends, and not for me. I don't always want to write for other people; I want to write for me.
Perhaps this problem could be solved by giving us the ability to make our posts private. I would definitely write more often if we had that option. Not because I want to hide things and keep secrets from my friends but because there's some things that I don't want to share with the entire world.

Your user,
Mark


In a previous post Jeff and Gina shared their favorite commercials with us. This is mine.



Maybe it's because I find the girl in the commercial georgeous and I love all of her facial expressions or that the song has a light and happy tone or just that I think the commercial was done really well, but it's probably all of the above.

While I'm on the topic of commercials has anyone seen the new Michelin commercials?



And as anyone recognized their resemblance to this song?



Coincidence? I think not.

I applied for SDSU for Fall 2010. I found out I have to take a communications class that wasn't required for UCSD application but I also found out that I don't have to take 3rd semester ASL because that is only required for the BA Biology program, not the BS. I might take track next semester to fill up some empty units. It will be nice to get back in shape again.

Chris, I'm sorry I failed you, I hate myself.

For everyone else:
I hate myself because I hate being alone but I can't seem to do anything about it. I'm kinda tired of being 3rd or 5th wheel all the time. Although, I would much rather be 3rd or 5th wheel than be alone. I don't necessarily need to be in a relationship, I just need a sidekick. You know, someone to help me out when I get stuck in a wall or something. But I always feel like I'd be bothering someone by calling them up and seeing if they want to hang out, and I don't want to bother people. I'm pretty sure I've accidentally sabotaged a lot of potential friendships or relationships because my not wanting to bother people comes off as me not caring. I think I care a little too much.

In an unrelated topic… today, at Cosmos, Jeff and I witnessed a married couple with a child get in an argument and talk about hiring a lawyer. Divorce?

This last weekend I was presented with the opportunity to get out of San Diego for a night. It was a last minute offer and I figured what the hell, carpe diem (right Joe?), and obviously, I took it. The 5-6 hours of driving (round trip) alone was not particularly fun, nor was the flat tire I got on my way there, but it was a good trip. It was nice to change things up and be somewhere new.
I spent some good quality time with one of my best friends and his girlfriend. We got our butts kicked in laser tag by some little kids, but our team still came in 2nd out of 3.
I had planned on visiting my aunt while I was nearby but I ran out of time because I had to be back in San Diego by 8pm on Saturday to see a play with my grandparents. I was 30 mins late because I was falling asleep while driving, with an hour and 30 mins of a drive left, and I figured it was best I pulled over and napped for a bit. A bit became 45 minutes.
The play was good, Lamb's Players never seems to disappoint. It was called Joyful Noise or Joyful Sound, or something along those lines. It's about Handel and what he was going through when he composed the Hallelujah Chorus and all that good stuff.
Afterward my grandparents took Shelly and I to Denny's, mainly because I love that place so much. We talked from 11:20 pm til 2:15 am. The first hour or so was nice but after a while I felt trapped and was just waiting for them to give us the ok to leave.
I ended up staying up until 8 am, writing some music, and eventually fell asleep. Once I was asleep my body decided to catch up on all the sleep I had missed during the weekend and I slept until 9:20 pm. So I spent last night working on music, planning my next painting, and playing with my kitties.
Then it was time to get ready for work.




ps. Jeff I think you'll like this. There's a new medley.


The audio gets a little scrambled once the drums come in but you get the idea.

I haven't posted a blog in over a month.

Maybe it's because I have nothing to say or maybe I just forget what I want to write about when the time comes.

Either way, I'm committing myself to writing one today, even though I don't have the substance or time at this moment.

Consider this a place holder for now.

*********************************************************************************************************************

Ok, I finally have set aside time to sit down and put this post together.

Lets work backwards through time to help me remember what's happened recently.

I had a dream last night that I was in a car accident. Alex D'Avignon was driving and there was 6 other people in the car, none of whom I knew. Then all of a sudden he wanted to be like Nitro Circus or something and took his car off a jump. I was sitting with 2 others in the trunk portion of the car and as the car began to flip backwards I knew it was going to land upside down. I opened the trunk and jumped out, landing safely. My biggest concern was that I'm not currently covered by insurance cause I'm not a full time student, so I had to avoid getting hurt at all costs.

Yesterday I worked from 1-10pm. The fog started rolling in around 4pm and by the time I left it was very thick.



The night before last I had a dream where I had slept for 24 hours and was very relieved when I awoke to find that I had only slept about 9.

I didn't do much on Monday. Relaxed, watched some tv, went to Cosmos, and later I watched Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It's the only thing on at 2am that I find interesting, but I think I've seen the whole series now.

Halloween was fun, I was kinda bummed I didn't get to stop by Ian's party though.



Chris' costume was pretty good for a last minute throw together. Jeff did a great job with the blood.



Here's Ashley as David Bowie, looking creepy.

Haz and all his costumes...






There's a lot more picture from that night but this post will be long enough without me flooding it with photos.

Chris, you need to post some pictures of me in my costume, cause I don't have any.

I spent 12 hours with my nana during the week before Halloween preparing my costume. I kinda hated her the first day cause she made me do everything and I wasn't planning on spending 6 hours with her. The second day was better and it was nice spending time getting to know her as a person and not just my grandmother. The costume came out well and I am pretty proud of the fact that I made it myself from a few yards of fabric. It's also really comfortable and I've slept in it 2 times already.

Before that there was a good 2 weeks where I basically lived at Cosmos. I don't like spending time at home when everyone is there and watching tv, it's too loud and crowded. I didn't work much because there just wasn't enough to do. So I had a lot of free time, which I spent at Cosmos working on problems for my math class.

We took our math competition exam 2 Fridays ago. I think I did pretty well, considering I answered 13 questions and I saw one person turn in their test who had only answered 3. I really enjoy math and have been considering changing my major to something more math related like math or physics. But I just want to graduate asap so I'll probably just stick with biology.

When we were on top of Mt. Helix on Halloween Jeff asked everyone what they were looking forward to in the next couple months. I couldn't think of anything at the moment but after some thought I've got a few things.

The Typical:
- It getting colder
- Scarves
- Coats
- Thanksgiving

More me specific:
- Shoes instead of sandals
- Sleeping in my wolf costume
- Hanging out with Jeff and Joe more often
- Hanging out during the day
- Band practice
- Opening for Mew?
- surfing
- applying to colleges to hopefully get the hell out of GCCCD
- painting more, now that I retrieved all my paints from jeff's garage
- hot coffee instead of iced

There's probably more but that's all for now, I think this post is long enough, sorry guys.