I am a farmer who raise ducks and cows. The animals have a total of 9 heads and 26 feet. How many ducks and cows do I have?
Submitted by The BlueTie.
Seriously? This is the QoTD? A math problem?
5 ducks and 4 cows.
Come on now vox, you can do better than this.
Last night I went out and got my hair cut. Normally I wouldn't announce this to the world or anything but I've been trying to grow it out a little bit because I got tired of how I've looked pretty much the same since I started getting haircuts. So I let my hair grow for a couple months until it was a decent length and went in last night to get it cut.
It's not a drastic change, really. Right now anyway. It's just longer than it has been in the past. I think I'd like to go for something just a hair longer than it is right now by the end of it. I've been told I look better with hair that's a little bit longer. I wasn't planning on changing over to the final style yet or anything, I just needed it to be a little more under control.
The title also references a change in the appearance of my apartment too. After my haircut I swung by my friend's apartment and picked up the print for my piece of artwork. It came out amazing. All of the little details from the digital piece are in there and it looks like she did the work by hand on that piece of paper as opposed to doing it digitally and having it printed. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I just need to find a good place to put it. I found something I sorta liked but I think I'm going to move things around a little more. My apartment really needs more room for art type things as I've gotten quite the collection over the past few years.
I also picked up Hannibal (because I finished Red Dragon and Silence Of The Lambs since I last posted a book update...working on it!) while I was out which I'm hoping I enjoy. It seems to be a very love it or hate it kind of book, and I hope I'm in the "love it!" camp.
Gimme a V! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What's that spell? VOX!
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Remember that piece of artwork that I mentioned I was having done a few posts back? Well, it has been completed and I'm very very happy with the result. Wassy has outdone herself with this one.
Yep, it's another piece of art of my favorite City of Heroes character, Frost Magus. The way I figure it, you can't have enough! But this time it also includes my main City of Villains character, Dark Frost. Boring story time!
Dark Frost and Frost Magus are the same person, sort of. Dark Frost is a version of Frost Magus from an alternate dimension that was thrown down the path of evil when one important change happened in the timeline of her dimension that didn't happen in the hero Frost's. They both got their powers through a magical spell that backfired, however the difference was that Dark Frost's parents were killed in the accident while Frost Magus' survived. The loss of her parents gradually destabilized Dark Frost and she became cynical and selfish, only caring about herself in an uncaring world, so she thought. She turned to a life of crime to get by. Meanwhile, the hero Frost was using her powers for good.
Dark Frost was eventually sucked into the dimension where the hero Frost resided due to a lab equipment malfunction during an experiment. Not wanting to let the public know about what happened (because otherwise they would have to admit their research is pulling random people from other dimensions into their own...not a very popular thing you can imagine) they threw her into jail and tried to coverup what happened. Eventually Dark Frost escaped with help from Arachnos and ended up in the Rogue Islands, increased her power and proved that she was in fact one of the Destined Ones. All of that last bit is part of the City of Villains storyline.
While she was in the Rogue Islands though, she found out about the existance of the hero Frost. The more she learned, the more resentful and angry she got. Here's another her that got all the good breaks...all the breaks that she (Dark Frost) deserved to have. After she achieved the height of her power she decided that she was strong enough to strike out to Paragon City and meet up with the woman who had (in her view) stolen her real life.
And thats where this piece comes in. After getting Dark Frost to level 50 in game, I thought it would be very cool if there would be a Frost/Dark Frost piece...a sorta good vs evil type thing. I talked to Wassy who agreed to take on the project and off we went. Through discussion, this scene emerged. Dark Frost has planned out this meeting so she's confident that it's happening on her terms, so she appears relaxed on the wall. But she's ready to spring into action if things start going all unpredictable. She had just called out to Frost, making her presence known and Frost is whipping around trying to locate the source of that strangely familiar voice. And her shock is total when it ends up being her own face looking back at her.
I can't say enough good things about how this piece turned out. It's exactly what I was looking for when I thought that a combined piece would be cool, and in fact it exceeded my expectations when I got the final colored version last night (late last night or I would have posted this then). It looks so awesome, like it was a full page ripped straight from a comic book and all of the layers of meaning that I wanted in there are there. It tells a very important piece of the story of these two characters that can't happen in the game and it's also suggestive of a large scale battle soon to come.
I don't even know where to start. All the little details of this piece make it awesome. I especially like the subtle details of the shading in Frost's face and the way her hand is posed. And Dark Frost turned out amazing as well. And the background setting. And the lighting. And the little touches of detail. And the...well...everything. I'm in a very gushy mood right now, I just love it! I can't wait until I get the print. I need to figure out where I'm going to put the print first...I'm running out of wall space here.
This weekend was good. Real good. The main thing that happened was I drove out to Rochester (about 2.5 hours away) to go see The Dark Knight at an IMAX theater and also head out to Bugaboo Creek for dinner with some friends.
I'm not going to spoil anything about Dark Knight here since not everyone may have seen it. But I'm going to say that it deserves every single bit of hype it's been getting. I'm not a huge batman fan so I was going into this movie just slightly excited and a little annoyed at how everyone was talking about it. It was starting to feel like I would get tired of the movie before I even saw it. But I forgot all of that about 15 minutes into the movie.
Heath Ledger's Joker also deserves every bit of praise that's being placed upon it. He wasn't a guy playing the joker...he was the joker. End of story. His performance stole the show and I'm still kinda speechless after seeing it. I had no idea he could totally transform himself like that.
Go see it. Even if you are very "eh" about batman. It's just...good.
Dinner after was good too, although the service was very slow and I was threatened with the horror of having somebody tell them it was my birthday and then the waiters would come over and make me kiss this moose puppet thing. The friends in question were Jay and Wassy, along with another individual I met in college and his housemate. It was fun hanging out with them since we don't usually hang out in person like that.
Sunday was spent hanging out and playing City of Heroes for a good portion of time due to a crazy long thing I said I would do that ended up taking about 7 hours. Fun!
How do you travel to and from work - personal vehicle, bus, subway/train, pedal power? What does it cost you per week in gas or fares?
Submitted by Jan.
I live relatively close to work. I drive my Nissan Rogue which averages around 25.1mpg and my commute is 7.5 miles.
So, calculating that out, a 1 way trip is roughly .2988 gallons of gas. 2 way trip is .5976 gallons. At a price of about $4.15/gallon, that means I pay $1.24 for a one way trip, $2.48 per day, and for a week I pay about $12.40.
Wassy was over last night, as per usual on Wednesday nights. We spend the majority of the evening just hanging out and listening to music with her taking the time to work on the piece of artwork that I had mentioned a couple posts down (which is turning out very awesomely) and I spent some quality time with Civilization Revolution and my DS.
We also watched a couple more episodes of the wonderful anime series Full Metal Alchemist. We've almost worked our way through the whole series and I'm really liking it a lot. Very good story, and pretty easy to follow for such a long complex series. I can't believe that I used to not like anime type things and now I'm pretty into it. This portion of the evening also revealed exactly how lazy we both are. She was sitting on the couch and was trying to hand me the DVD to put in the player but we couldn't reach each other. So she tried to toss it but it fell short and fell on the ground where we just kinda stared at it for a while. It was kinda funny and sad all at the same time.
And now for some general comments on Civilzation Revolution after playing it for a few days. I'm still finding it very enjoyable, however there's a few little things that cropped up. First, I wish there was a difficulty setting between Warlord and King, because on Warlord I can steamroll the computer pretty quickly and on King it's the other way around, they beat the crap out of me. That's the thing with civilization games, I like playing a challenging game, but I don't want to lose because of the amount of time that I invest in the game. It's a tricky balance...but it's still fun to have my Civilization on the go.
So this concludes todays total grab bag of random stuff. At least stuff I can talk about. There's other stuff...hopefully I can talk about it at some point, but...we'll see.
If you happened to glance at my twitter box a little further down the page (or right next to...or above depending on when you read this) you may have noticed that I have misplaced my wallet.
I'm fairly certain that it's in my apartment somewhere. Last friday I was sitting at my desk and I took it out of my pocket because it's uncomfortable to sit on sometimes. And I put it...somewhere. Now I can't find it. I checked all the usual spots (and the unusual ones...going through the garbage, not fun) with no luck, so I'm chalking it up as a loss right now.
I called up and reported my cards as lost last night. Everything except two of them which I had out of my wallet for one reason or another, so at least I have access to my bank account and a credit card. Now I need to wait the 4 weeks it'll take the state to send me a new drivers license. Sigh. Hopefully it arrives before the state fair. Or I stumble upon my wallet by then.
I'm also in the market for a thin wallet of some kind. Bah, this is really annoying.
Although we typically post on Team Vox to let you know about things that are going on with Vox (to, uh, state the obvious), once in a while, we like to let you know about other cool things that are happening around the blogosphere. And we think the idea of four hilarious mommy bloggers traveling across the U.S. on their way to the BlogHer '08 conference - all the while blogging and video blogging the journey - is one trip you will not want to miss.
Four adventurous bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group were selected to participate in the Summer Road Trip '08 and blog about their travels, hotel stays, media appearances, time away from their families, and life on the road. Six Apart helped them partner up with General Motors, who provided the blogging mommies with a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV to help make their journey comfy, safe, and a little more green.
In case you're not familiar with them, SV Moms is a group of over 200 bloggers who showcase the ups, downs, outrages, struggles, victories, and everyday humor of motherhood. There are currently nine regional and demographically tailored sites that give mothers from D.C., New Jersey, the Deep South, Rocky Mountains, L.A., and Silicon Valley a powerful voice and sense of camaraderie across the country. Whether you're a mother, a child, or just a person who enjoys a good blog, you'll really love reading the words of these amazing women.
The moms buckled into their Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV on July 11th and even got an encouraging message from Katie Couric to kick things off! They are currently somewhere in the middle of America making their way to San Francisco where they'll attend an SV Moms Group Party, as well as BlogHer '08.
You do not want to miss these entertaining and irreverent bloggers -- or their spontaneous contest giveaways! -- as they blog from the road. Experience the journey at MomRoadTrip.com.
And let us know about your summer road trip - or plane/boat/bus trip - in the comments! (I like to live vicariously.)
President Bush lifted an executive order banning offshore oil drilling on Monday. Do you think this is a good solution to the high prices Americans are paying for gasoline?
No. No it's not. There's a sizable portion of Americans who think that we can all get cheaper gas if we tap our oil reserves. There's also a sizable portion of Americans who don't realize that any oil that we can produce is going to be a small drop in the bucket of what we consume. We can't meet our daily consumption with our untapped reserves. We're not sitting on some goldmine of oil here.
Sure, the prices might drop a bit...but not much, not enough. The only way out of this mess is to cut back on consumption, not increase production. Increasing production is only treating the symptom, not the disease. I don't have a huge problem with offshore drilling, but the minute they lift the ban on drilling in alaska...ugh.
It just bothers me that people think that we can rely on domestic oil and cut down on imports. They seem to think it's some conspiracy that we have all this oil and it would change the world if we would use it. But that's just short term thinking, and shoddy short term thinking at that. It's just the typical perceived easy way out that the masses tend to favor that got us into this in the first place.
