Your World

"Don't let anyone else create your world for you, because they'll always make it too small." - Earl

Who is Earl? That's actually what I'd like to know. I went to the Island Party today with my friend Jeremy and while Wideawake was setting up they had this black dude named Earl speak to us for a bit, and I'm guessing that he's a preacher of some sort. So anyway, that quote is what he said his mom told him when he was little. The guy introducing him said that Earl had always made him reflect after his speeches, and I find myself doing the same after hearing him speak first hand. I wish our priest at church was more like him. He wasn't one of those guys who tried to speak on a cool, relatable level but a guy who was actually able to so. The main tenets of his speech were that you shouldn't sell yourself short because God loves you and that every human life is important, but the way he put it all was so uplifting and it makes me sad that I know people who let themselves become unambitious. They're obviously not creating their own world, and I encourage you all to steer clear of that trap. You can become all that you want to be and more. The secondary highlight of the evening was seeing Jars of Clay, who I had heard about for a while and for good reason. They gave an awesome performance and the whole crowd (thousands of people) was really into them. Main mall was packed, and I mean PACKED. I was glad that I got there around 6PM so I was in the very front, and the performance was worth it so look into them sometime when you get a chance.



The nerd news today isn't half bad. I'll start out with the nerdiest thing: we now have a language to replace Fortran! It's called Fortress and was created by one of the head honchos who brought you Java. The point of it is scientific and mathematical uses and so they're hoping that the mathematical notation will make it more preferred, and I'm sure it will. If you really want to be a hardcore nerd you can try making a DVR out of an old PC. It's under $200 and I'm sure could be done in a day, but the average person would say, "Screw this," and just buy a Tivo. Yesterday RIAA reached their 10,000 lawsuit mark, and I'm sure those bastards are toasting champagne somewhere. I don't know that they'll ever win as long as they follow this gestapo strategy. I don't even download songs and I hate it. In a rather cool move, BBC, which I consider a good news source, has decided to embrace RSS. I'm glad to see RSS get so big. The former chief technology officer of Microsoft has moved on to creating a company whose sole purpose is to invest in investors. If it sounds weird, it actually isn't. A lot of our products today are just improvements, not new inventions, so this is a great idea. And lastly, I have to cite this article about the development of unhackable transmissions. Can you imagine data transfers so fast that it would be impossible to be intercepted? Apparently, they can.

I'm pleased to report some rather interesting movie news today. First off, the champion in the box office was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was good in that beat out a lot of horrible movies, but it barely made over $20 million. The real test will be how it holds up next weekend. The media today is quite exciting. There's a music video online for Revenge of the Sith and though I'm not a Star Wars geek at all I thought it was pretty sweet and worth checking out. Not a whole lot of crazy creatures though. There's now a trailer up for Robert Rodriguez's newest film: The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl 3D. While it doesn't sound too exciting the trailer proves that we shouldn't underestimate Mr. Rodriguez. And if you can't get enough of the newest Batman Begins trailer, you can check out this analysis. I had previously reported that Pierce Brosnan is supposed to be James Bond once more, but Sony is recanting those claims saying that they don't know who it will be yet. How curious; I wonder if they're just covering. Another curious bit of news is this interview in which George Lucas almost hints that he's had a hand in War of the Worlds, but all I care is an Indiana Jones 4 with Harrison Ford. And now to close with some superhero stuff. An Iron Man movie is slated to be out in 2007 due to director delays, and its basically been confirmed that Marvel's first movies under its deal with Paramount will be Captain America and Nick Fury, which could go either way.

Not much else going on. Keep an eye on the Fed to raise interest rates this week to get the rate somewhere more neutral. I'm starting to hope more and more that UT doesn't purchase the Los Alamos laboratory with discontent from employees, but I suppose it's all related to just one bad seed.

Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Texas::Longhorns 8-)
   
2. Scholarship::Free money
   
3. Runner-up::Best loser
   
4. Mustang Sally::That classic oldie of that title
   
5. Jones::Star
   
6. Hard to get::A girl!
   
7. Jewish::Star of David
   
8. Crew::A tough sport
   
9. Cable::What I'm on this very moment
   
10. Assistant::Tag from Friends