Start of week 7

Back with another regular update, hope you enjoy!

GearLive had two stories last week based on USB technology, both of which were really interesting I thought.  The first was a USB wall socket.  Essentially you could run USB wire through your house, providing an outlet for a printer, a camera, a hub, or any other of the crazy amount of USB gadgets that are out there.  The second was the announcement that an upcoming music album will be released in only two formats: digital download and USB flashdrive.  While I don’t think it will do very well (I don’t think there is quite the market penetration for such a release to be a big hit), I do think we will see more of the like in the future, maybe even an iPod that can take direct downloads (through synchronization) from stores or USB devices.

A group of us took a Central RT and saw Order of the Phoenix in U-Town, and it was good, but I had a few gripes, the first of which has to do with a commercial that ran before the movie, actually.  It was a commercial for the National Guard.  And in the course of it, there was some B-roll footage of an American flag waving.  However, it was not the current flag which we have today, it was a 48 star flag.  A bit unnerving to say the least.

Like I said, I enjoyed the movie, it moved fast, there was a montage-like period (without an 80’s song however), and overall it was dark and very engaging, but again, a few things stuck out in my mind that I didn’t really like: the second half of the school year seemed to not exist, magically (excuse the pun), they all appeared at the end of the semester.  I was also a bit disappointed with the Veil scene, it wasn’t at all how I imagined it, which is fine, but it didn’t even look like Sirius went through it, and it felt off.  The arch was a lot bigger than I imagined, but I think that helped.  The ending was horrible I thought though, because there really wasn’t one.  Harry had an awful cliché of a line, and then that was it, the camera panned to a scenery shot and the screen faded to the credits.

There was a preview for a new Disney movie that looks really funny though.  A bunch of cartoon characters are cursed to NYC and they have to survive and get back before being trapped forever in Manhattan.  It looks campy, but funny, I hope I get to go see it.

Yoshi was officially announced as a character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which is good news for me.  I’m glad he’ll be back for sure, I can’t wait!

I haven’t read the news article yet, but I heard that Drew Carey will be taking Bob Barker’s place on The Price is Right.  It will be very strange to not have Barker there anymore, but I hope Carey does a good job, I always found in very funny, so I’ll be sure to tune in when I can.

Westinghouse announced they won a contract to build four AP1000 reactors, which is wonderful news.  I actually got into an argument the other night at the bar about the power industry.  Which was aggravating on multiple levels: mostly because the other party refused to accept the fact that nuclear power is safe and effective, and continued to try to convince me that we needed to rely solely on the green power productions.  While I think they (solar, wind and the up and coming, and very exciting, tidal and geothermal) need to be included and have their place, I don’t think we should be relying on just one type of power, and we especially can’t do it with the above mentioned forms, seeing as they are not efficient enough to fulfill our power needs.  So that was difficult, and annoying.

Then, we tried to come back to camp from the bar.  But that didn’t work: there was a fire on Dinner Bell Road, blocking our access to camp.  We ended up going back to The Pike for another round and then headed back.  No one was hurt, and the fire was contained to just one room, but there were still about eight trucks at the house, which was amazing.

We celebrated Christmas (holiday, Chriswanzaka or Chrismahanaquanzawanaka, depending on which you prefer) in July last week, which was fun.  We had pierogies, two types of wings and lasagna.  Not your normal holiday food, but good nonetheless, and a nice change.  This Tuesday is our block party, we’ll be grilling and playing bocce near the Potomac Homes, along with music, Frisbee and sack races!  Also last week was the Camp Liberty Mexico in July celebration.  I joined in (even though I was CQ) by eating a quesadilla (it was delivered after we finished our game of bocce).

We had two visitors this week, which were great to see: Denny Clemens and Jim McMichaels.  Clemens used to be the foodservice director up here and McMichaels is on the board, was very involved in EVAC and was my vigil class honoree as well as my sponsor that night.  We chatted for a while, and it was wonderful to catch up with both of them.

We also took our staff photo, which I thought was in a boring spot (the same one they use most years, the statue of the Lone Scout), but still nice.  Hopefully it turned out well, I guess I’ll find out soon enough, although I am a bit concerned about my transition lenses, although they hadn’t darkened a lot when we took it.  The photographer was actually the same guy that did the pictures at my parent’s wedding, and I used to work with him when we did the troop photos at Freedom in 2003.  He’s always a lot of fun and makes us laugh a lot, so it was enjoyable.

I think that’s it for now, catch everyone later!