Honest Celebrity

Asked about what is was like to be a celebrity, Walt [Disney] demurred, saying that it helped him to get better seats at football games and was a nuisance when he had to contend with autograph seekers. But, he added, "As far as I can remember, being a celebrity has never helped me make a good picture, or a good shot in a polo game, or command the obedience of my daughter, or impress my wife. It doesn't even keep the fleas off our dogs."

Age of Sound

There's really a lot of good music out there. You just have to find it. Don't settle for that crap on the radio. Check out these tunes:
"Immovable" - Jeremy Larson
"Reasons to Love You" - Meiko
"A Melody, The Memory" - Mae
"I Don't Know" - Lisa Hannigan
"New Romantic" - Laura Marling
"After Hours" - We Are Scientists

New Rehab Blog Article

Head on over to Coaster101 Rehab blog and check out my new article on expectations this summer for your local amusement and tell me what you think! http://www.coaster101.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=42&Itemid=83

MCGC and a Radiohead Show

I went to an MCGC indoor drumline show the other week. Wasn't too impressed with any of the shows besides NorthCoast Academy's "Echo." Everything else bordered on boring because there was nothing new to me. Here is a poor quality video of "Echo" I took. Hopefully will get more, higher quality videos up when I get a new computer. Enjoy.



I heard about another group today that is doing an all Radiohead show. That is awesome. Here is their website: http://onyourvideotape.com/



I could do without the singing but this show overall is pretty cool because they've done a few things I haven't seen before, plus that snare solo at the end is pretty sweet. And I love that they squeezed in part of "Let Down" as that is one of my favorite songs of all time.

Bond vs. Taken

Taken is a good action movie. Quantum of Solace is a bad action movie. Very bad. The problem I have with the direct sequel to the very good Casino Royale is that there is too much action. A car, boat, plane, and foot chases all in the same movie? That might be ok if they didn't sacrifice story in order to do it. The action was even that entertaining either to make up for it. Nothing original, everything had been done before. The cutting was way too fast too and made it hard to watch because every cut seemed like it was under a second. The bad guys were forgettable.

Taken on the other hand had had everything you would expect and more. A simple straight forward plot with a fast moving story. Highly entertaining and much more believable than Bond.

Excel at Excel

Here is my two variable lookup formula with variable lookup length:

{=INDEX(INDIRECT("L2V!C$4:C"&Configs!$I$16),
MATCH(Configs!$T2&Configs!$U2,
INDIRECT("L2V!$A$4:A"&Configs!$I$16)
&INDIRECT("L2V!$B$4:B"&Configs!$I$16),0))}

Boiling Over

There are millions of HARD WORKING Americans out of work right now. That is why I am absolutely pissed at someone at my work, because they do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and earns a decent wage with no reprimands. I sit behind him so I can see everything he does. One day I decided to quantify how much work he doesn't do. In the four plus hours I watched him he did 18 minutes of "work" (7%) and I don't know if you can call looking at a Power Point work. He took an hour and half for lunch, at least that is what I thought until he walked back in the door holding a lunch he had picked up at the cafe downstairs and preceded to waste more time by eating it at his desk! So freaking ridiculous! It boils my blood. I'm going to make a pie chart, I'll post a picture when I do. And I know what you're thinking, that I am wasting time by observing him. Not true, I can work and watch at the same time, besides the fact I've done more work in a day than he has the entire time I have been here. He should give his pay to someone more deserving. End of rant for now.

Easy Reward

Properties featured on the Rent.com site pay a fee only when their Rent.com advertisement results in a lease. When a renter reports their lease at one of those properties to them, they know to contact that property to collect the advertising fee. So for those properties, they reward renters for telling them about their lease by offering a $100 prepaid Visa® debit card. 1. Find a property on Rent.com that features the $100 Reward Card. 2. Tell the leasing office you found the property on "Rent.com." 3. Report your lease to Rent.com online. 4. Receive your $100 prepaid Visa® debit card in the mail. The best part is that this is totally true. They actually follow up on their offer. It took several weeks but I got my reward in the mail. The card expires pretty soon, so you have to use it quickly but it is a nice little reward for almost no effort on my part. Thanks, Rent.com!

Podcast #4 - The Ravine Flyer II Show

The Gravity Group answered my mailbag question on their most recent podcast. What a cool bunch of engineers! Have a listen below:
Podcast #4 - The Ravine Flyer II Show

Posted using ShareThis

The Great American Midrange

The Elms are in the studio recording their new album. The entire process is being streamed online. You can also chat to the band members via chatroom when they are not busy cranking out cool tunes. Very awesome idea in my opinion. We suggested to Thom to come to Michigan and he wanted to know where. When we said Ann Arbor area he suggest the Blind Pig. Thanks for being so cool! Check it out here:
Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

http://www.theelms.typepad.com/thom/

Lie to Me

I've been watching this new show on Fox called "Lie to Me" starring Tim Roth. It's about a private firm that solves crimes with no physical evidence. They try to detect deception in witnesses by observing body language and micro expressions through the Facial Action Coding System, using this talent to assist clients (such as law enforcement). The show gets really interesting when they use these techniques on each other and their family members. The lead character obviously has some secrets he doesn't want anyone to know about. The show is on Wednesdays after American Idol. Check it out!

P.S. Does anybody know what the song is being played in the opening credits?

Easy Money?

I think there is a lot of money in storage facilities. I heard they charge $150 per month for a storage unit that is 50 square feet. That means they are charging $3 per square foot. Now compare that to an apartment. To make the math easy let's say you have a 1000 square foot apartment. At the storage rental rate your rent would be $3000 per month.  When I was looking at apartments there was a 1000 square foot apartment at Green Hills. The monthly rent would've been $870 per month. And at an apartment you have to worry about electric, gas, etc. At a storage facility there is only sheet metal and air. To further increase your revenue, build vertically, that way you don't have to worry about taxes increasing, just your potential for even more profit.  You don't even have to put lights in the units or worry about repainting, etc. when someone moves out. Anyone want to invest in one with me?

Conan the Barbarian Strikes

Conan-tagen-nagen-dagen!

Disney and Interactivity

The amusement park visitor of today is vastly different than the visitor of yesteryear. Visitors, especially the younger generations, are expecting more and more customized entertainment experiences. The days of the passive viewer are over. Today is all about interaction, choices, and personalization. The quickening pace of daily living combined with the advance in personal technology contribute to reshaping what guests are expecting out of today's amusement parks. There's also an erosion of patience as people's tolerance for waiting in lines is decreasing at a rapid rate. Visitors want instant gratification, personalization, and interaction. They want to add their own input to an attraction. "What do I get to do?" To address shifting tastes, the broader amusement park industry will have to rewrite its operating rules. Disney understands this better than anyone and has already built attractions that use technology to their advance and cater to the needs of today's amusement park guests. One of these new attractions takes the personal experience to the next level: Kim Possible. From Wikipedia: "Based on the Disney Channel animated series Kim Possible, the World Showcase Adventure is an interactive attraction taking place in several of the World Showcase pavilions. The attraction is an electronic scavenger hunt that has guests using special "Kimmunicators" (in actuality, stripped-down cellular phones) to help teenage crime-fighters Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable solve a "crime" or disrupt an evil-doers "plans for global domination." The "Kimmunicator" is able to trigger specific events within the pavilion grounds that provide clues to completing the adventure. Launched in January 2009 and presented by Verizon Wireless, the Adventure is included in park admission." Here's the basic procedure: 1. Sign up as an agent to help Kim Possible. 2. Receive a ticket directing you to a 'disguised' cart in one of three countries. 3. Receive the phone device and follow instructions to the mission country. 4. Find and perform several interactions that drive the storyline. 5. Deposit phone in secret location. The "fake" mobile phone looks like the older LG flip phones and will not work outside of the park. Movie files play when you hit a specific destination and it gives you a task. Then the magic happens. It's an attraction, no more offsetting than spending time to go on a ride. However, it's not something you carry around all day and tinker with. There are 7 different missions to do. Because it's so technical people won't shy away from it. The big thing is the time involved. It should only take about thirty to forty-five minutes to do, which shouldn't distract you from your day any more than doing any other attraction.  The potential issue is if you go through it with others doing it right ahead of you. Then you run the risk of seeing the clues ahead of time thus spoiling the fun for your hunt. There are many other new attractions across the Disney parks that also have a new level of interactivity. Turtle Talk with Crush is pretty amazing. It's been out a couple years now--one in Epcot and one in DCA. It's basically a puppet, but done with computer animation instead of a real puppet---and completely interactive with kids in the audience, including facial expressions, etc. Even when you know how they do it, you forget. And if you don't know how they do it, here is the explanation from Wikipedia: "Crush's movements and lip synch is created on the fly and is projected at 60-frames-per-second so that the turtle's mouth moves in synchronization with the words of a hidden actor portraying the character. The sophistication of the animation enables the projected turtle to move about the screen, seemingly propelling himself with his flippers, doing somersaults, and hovering, in very convincing maneuvers controlled by the actor. This breakthrough technology enables every show to be different than the one before as Crush responds uniquely to each individual audience." The Monsters Inc. show in Magic Kingdom uses the same idea, but I've heard that the theater is too large for the effect to really work well whereas Epcot's Crush theater is perfect for this. Another interactive attraction is Toy Story Mania. There is one in California and another in Florida. Toy Story Mania is very re-ridable because of the Easter eggs. For example, during the Dart Scene you will see two clouds with balloons on them (it takes two people to be effective), but if you clear the balloons on both sides of the clouds at the same time (each person takes a cloud) you will be treated with a rain of 2000 point balloons, where you can then rack up the score nicely. Each round has a different Easter egg. Also, let's not forget the Tower of Terror. It's got an endless set of programs, so like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get!

Riceboy Sleeps

Jonsi, from Sigur Ros, and his boyfriend have teamed up to become Riceboy Sleeps. They've donated a new track to a charity album. "Happiness" is weird yet soothing. Take a listen over on the right hand side--->

Four+ Column Combinations

These are the formulas for four columns, and also taking headers into account. I have limited the ranges to 9 numbers, but you have as many as you want (or even substitute the COUNTA formulas for their values). With the data on columns A to D the formulas could be:

E2: =OFFSET($A$2,INT((ROW()-2)/(COUNTA($B$2:$B$10)*(COUNTA($C$2:$C$10)*COUNTA($D$2:$D$10)))),0)
F2: =OFFSET($A$2,INT(MOD((ROW()-2),COUNTA($D$2:$D$10)*COUNTA($C$2:$C$10)
*COUNTA($B$2:$B$10))/(COUNTA($C$2:$C$10)*COUNTA($D$2:$D$10))),1)
G2: =OFFSET($A$2,INT(MOD((ROW()-2),COUNTA($D$2:$D$10)*COUNTA($C$2:$C$10))
/COUNTA($D$2:$D$10)),2)
H2: =OFFSET($A$2,MOD((ROW()-2),(COUNTA($D$2:$D$10))),3)

I am not sure if the pattern is clear. I have added the count of elements on the extra columns to the formulas, and change the offset and the ranges. For five columns it would follow the same pattern, with longer formulas.