Bodies - The Exhibition

I know you want to see this... come on, who wants to go? I'll be happy to tag along.
Here's the article from MSNBC

NEW YORK - If an anatomy textbook came to life, it might look like “Bodies … The Exhibition,” a show that opened Saturday at South Street Seaport in Manhattan.

The exhibit features 22 human bodies and 260 specimens preserved for display in a 30,000-square-foot space. Highlights include skinless cadavers in a football player’s pose, another throwing a baseball and one body holding hands with its own removed skeleton — all to show how muscles, tendons and bones work together.

There IS something similar in Philly called BODY WORLDS: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies. It has over 200 exhibits. I am going there in the next week or two with my sister.

In other news:

1. The world's first partial face transplant was recently performed - by a doc who performed the world's first double-forearm transplant already. link
   
2. Scientists have successfully implemented a full human schomosome into mice to study Down's syndrome (caused by an extra choromosome 21). link
3. After decades there might be a hope for people with lupus - at least in preventing kidney disease - in the name of a drug called CellCept. link
   

Merriam-Webster Asks: What's Your Favorite Word (That's Not in the Dictionary)?

No you do not have aphasia. You're not disorganized or schizophrenic. Other people do it too. Here's an article about neologisms from Merriam-Webster:

What a lovely bunch of vocabularians (persons who make up new words) you are! Lasterday (refers to any day before today) we squinched (action required to fit something into a space that is slightly too small) a schmiglet (a small unit of measurement) of your awesomtastic (so wonderful the words just meld in your mouth) one-of-a-kind entries into this space in preparation for our Top Ten reveal. With so many chizzy (awesome, super, happening) creations to choose from, we admit to becoming a bit flusterpated (a state of being flustered that's so intense, one's actions and words become bound up) and fahoodled (confused, esp. when trying to think of too many things at once). We craughed (to cry and laugh simultaneously), we troddled (to wander around without knowing of doing so), and finally decided to use the schwack (a large amount) of multiple entries received as the basis for the Top Ten—this is, let's not forget, all about favoritism.

From the thousands of submissions we received, here, then, are the ten words (not in the dictionary) entered the most often:

Top Ten Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary)

1. ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous

2. confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time

3. woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement

4. chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends

5. cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway

6. gription (n): the purchase gained by friction: "My car needs new tires because the old ones have lost their gription."

7. phonecrastinate (v): to put off answering the phone until caller ID displays the incoming name and number

8. slickery (adj): having a surface that is wet and icy
(Edit: Don't let that be you -a)

9. snirt (n): snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed

10. lingweenie (n): a person incapable of producing neologisms

View previous Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary)

An Article From Last year

Why Don’t Lottery Winners Run Wild?

Peter Hartlaub

[This is appropriate considering someone else won over 300 million dollars just recently in Anaheim. I knew I should have bought a lottery ticket at Disneyland! -Amit]

When was the last time a new lottery winner unveiled a master plan to blow the winnings on something useless and frivolous? Just once, wouldn’t it be nice to read about someone who insists on spending the money to “find some better-looking friends.” How about a promise to “squander my winnings on hookers and blow and Oakland Raiders personal seat licenses”?

As the lucky ticket holders from the latest California Super LottoPlus $100 million jackpot trickle forward this week, the public must once again settle for people like 80-year-old Los Altos Hills resident Walter Tracey, an otherwise pleasant man who told the media that his third of the prize will be devoted in part toward home repairs and scholastic funds for his grandchildren.

Lottery winners, by the very act of becoming rich while everyone else remains broke, are already annoying. But nothing twists the knife deeper for us losers than a winner who doesn’t do anything fun with his windfall. Whether it’s because of lessons learned from Enron or repeated tech-stock blunders, this is a culture

Psi-Ops (or ESPionage)

Since I have so much time to kill (I love it!), here's another game I finished. It's actually a Third person Shooter instead of FPS, which somewhat turned me off, but actually the TPS makes it much easier to play this game. There's something really fun about being able to life people shooting at you in air and drop them off a ledge. Not to mention taking control of their minds and shooting their buddies. Or hit them with a really big piece of rock. Or burn them to a crisp using a wave of scorching fire from your arm. or to drain their mind until their head pops. Or... you get the idea.

here's a review with pics:

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/523/523279p1.html

Now before I get busy, who wants to go see the broadway play Mama Mia with me?

Quake 4 (and Doom III)

ID software’s Wolfenstein 3D is arguably the first popular First Person Shooter. Doom however, is the game I remember really being impressed by (1994?). The graphics, the dark story, and the sheer, bloody fun was incomparable to any other game to date. It proved that the shareware strategy could be successful, and the FPS was a genre to be welcomed by gamers. ID’s Quake was a parallel world to Doom, with more emphasis on the bizarre and the alien than doom. With updated engine and technology, it also set new limits for FPS. Quake 3, despite being a fun game, offered no more depth into the interesting single-player story-world of the franchise. Therefore it was a complete surprise to see a huge and extremely comprehensive single-player game and storyline in the Doom III engine based Quake 4.

Doom III, in my opinion was outstanding in the way it creeped you out. It took very little imagination (especially with a good headset and the volume cranked up) to almost feel like a soldier fighting in a huge “urban” battlefield. The depth, quality, quantity of radio chatter–screams in your ears from dying civilian and marines, desperate requests of backup, orders from the brass, etc. – made it a very immersing experience. Of course the dirty trick of making you fight in almost pitch black levels with a flashlight that lasts 5 seconds did set you up for very suspenseful encounters.

On the other hand, Quake 4 takes all that, along with the beautiful graphics that accompany each ID game, and somehow manages to immerse you in the gaming environment even deeper as CPL Cain. I actually stopped moving many times to avoid running into the next skirmish just so I could finish listening to the conversations in my headset in peace. I even found it interesting to stop and listen to the idle conversations among the many NPCs in the game. And despite the fact that I had a permanent flashlight this time around (thank god), I was still creeped out more playing Quake 4 than Doom III–almost to the level of F.E.A.R.

Oh and a word of advice if you’re actually thinking of playing the game. When you get to the brain all the way at the end… you have to shoot at it near the ceiling to damage it. I must have wasted 30 minutes running around it trying to dodge the never-ending supply of enemies white shooting at the thing’s “feet” before I figured it out.

New Godzilla

AOL News - Giant 'Godzilla' Crocodile Hunted in Sea

it looks like a T-rex with flippers.

Chicken Little Goes Big

When a friend of mine suggested dinner and a movie with her, her roommate, and her roommate's friend, I figured it was a good idea. When I got to their place, I realized they wanted to see Chicken Little. My immediate inclination was "What the hell?" But then I remembered how funny the comemrcials/trailers seemed. And then there was this phone call with another two friends who told me how much they liked the movie on its premiere. Tantalization won, and I agreed to go. Man, it was actually a really fun movie. I am so glad I went. Big thumbs up for your choice, Calee. And no, I am not giving away anything from the movie. Suffice to say, it is a good big-screen adventure should you deem it interesting enough to see. It's also probably the only CGI animation so far I don't feel awkward seeing around kids. Don't wait until the DVD.. it just won't be as much fun - trust me.

New Jersey Gubernatorial Elections

How come Jersey elections tend to be so nasty? According to radio interviews, both candidates were surprised at the amount of mud slinging in this election. Like they hadn't seen the last two elections. According to NYTIMES:

In New Jersey, a swing state often considered a national bellwether, polls showed the race for governor narrowing. The campaign is breaking the state record for expenditures, with the two wealthy candidates having spent $72 million.

Their private lives had taken the spotlight as the Forrester campaign featured his wife in one commercial, then broadcast another quoting Mr. Corzine's ex-wife reacting to the Andrea Forrester advertisement and saying, "John did let his family down, and he'll probably let New Jersey down, too." Mr. Corzine was also criticized for forgiving a $470,000 mortgage to a former girlfriend who is president of a state workers' union. In the last week, both candidates have been questioned about women with whom they were said to be romantically involved, triggering lurid headlines, despite their denials.

The focus on the candidates' personal lives recalled Gov. James E. McGreevey's sudden resignation last year with the startling admission of an affair with a man that his aides said he had appointed as his homeland security adviser. The vacancy in Trenton was filled last November by Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey, who decided not to run.

Disneyland!

I am writing this post in retrospect, but today we actually decided to go to Disneyland. I mean, why not? It’s a place to visit at least once in your lifetime. We were going to do something random like the San Diego Zoo, but by noon we were parking at Goofy Level 4-b. Man, it was like a five minute drive inside the parking lot. Which was a GOOD thing because on a random Wednesday in November there is very little traffic in themeparks. Don’t get me wrong–there were plenty of people there, but man, it would have been hell if it were really crowded. The tickets were like 76 bucks each for two parks, but we got our (my) money’s worth. It literally took 5 minutes to get on most rides... 5 minutes to walk from the entranceway to the begininng of the line. Seriously. We must have only waited on two rides (15-20 min) near the end of the day when we were tired and cold (after getting soaked in this ridiculous geyser that was there just to spite us in this water ride). All in all though, it was a great day. We met up with a friend to eat at UC Irvine and then just went out and had fun. Vacation sure is nice.

LA / Hollywood

So as most of you know I have been in California since last Friday. I have been staying with a friend from College at Huntington Beach /OC area. He has been showing me around as I have never been to California, and I have been having a blast so far. Last night we went to West Hollywood for a Halloween parade and show. It was very interesting to see all the outrageous costumes, the fair in general, and the costume contests (my favorite being two people dressed as a combined house destroyed by hurricanes, representing FEMA: "Federal Emergency My Ass"). They had a band playing as well. Parking was a bitch, but we eventually found a large parging garage with ridiculously cheap prices - ONE buck for three hours and an extra dollar per hour beyond that. After 4 hours we left the area and drove over to Malibu to meet a person staying at this HUGE house by the beach - like a couple of blocks from Pepperdine. The view from this place was absolutely amazing. We hung out there for a bit and then slept over.

This morning we got to see the area in the sunlight and, yeah, I think I need to live in a place like this. Driving up there at 2 in the morning did not do the area justice. We left from there to go to Hollywood to drop off a person there. He showed us around a little bit and then we parked and took a trolley tour for an hour. It was pretty interesting to get the history of the area and to learn about the sidewalk stars and the Chinese theater. We were pretty tired by the evening so we drove to my friend's place at Huntington beach, where I am writing this. We're not sure about our plans for the night, but we agree we need to go back to Malibu to party this Thurs/Fri.