Category Archives: Arts

Worst Rock Band Ever


That article that I posted about earlier this week about the worst bands of 2003 got me to thinking . . . which band is the worst band in the history of rock and roll? Being a stats and numbers and research geek, I’ve developed a system for who qualifies and process for then honing the qualifiers down into a sheer hard ball of ultimate badness. It’ll probably take a week’s worth of posts to type it all out here with explanations and what have you, so watch this space to see the worst of the worst pulled from under their rock and beaten to death with sticks.
??Via: The Worst Rock Band Ever??

The article goes on to list out a bunch of bands that suck and has head-to-head competitions in a NCAA Bracket style. The worst rock band ever turns out to be Motley Crue.

Page 23

Drew told me to:

  1. Grab the nearest book.
  2. Open the book to page 23.
  3. Find the fifth sentence.
  1. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

From a book called Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson:

Godfrey: “Tortured?”

That didn’t quite work out like I had hoped, but it is still interesting nonetheless.

Instructional Shirt-Folding

Well, I ran into this video today that presents a neat way to fold shirts. I’ve got no idea if a lot of people fold shirts this way—as I’ve never had to fold more than a half-dozen shirts at a time in my life.

Shirt folding video

Needless to say, it’s pretty slick and easy to learn—although the directions are in Japanese.

Update: If needed, a local mirror is here.

Fall 2004

Well, I’ve gone and done it… registering for Fall ’04 that is.

Here’s the official breakdown:

  • Math 5615H — Honors Analysis
  • Phys 4001 — Analytical Mechanics
  • Phys 4051 — Methods of Experimental Physics I
  • Mus 3480 — Marching Band
  • Dnce 1321 — Ballroom I
  • PE 1031 — Sabre Fencing

All in all, it’ll be 13 academic credits & 3 “fun” credits, making this my easiest semester at the U yet.

In case you were wondering how it looks time-wise, he’s a screenshot from iCal:

Fall 2004 Schedule

The Rasterbator

I ran into a link to The Rasterbator a month or two ago and was curious as to how it’d turn out. Essentially it takes an image file you submit and creates a rasterized version of it, essentially a picture with only a white background and black circles of various diameter on a set grid. The “darker” the the part of the image, the larger diameter the black circle is.

I, of course, choose to do a portrait of myself [link dead], namely one that I took while in El Paso for the Sun Bowl.

The software on the site allowed me to crop the part of the image I wanted and then let me choose how many sheet of paper to print it on. I choose 2×2 since my printer was running out of toner.

It then processes your image and returns a pdf file of the output. In case you are curious, here’s the pdf output [link dead].

So I printed it and hung it on the wall. The final result:

A rasterized picture of myself hanging on the wall.

I decided it looked pretty good, so I made one of Dave too:

Rasterized photo of Dave.

Final Four

As I’m sure you’ve heard a million times already, the Lady Gopher’s Basketball Team is headed to the Final Four. I won’t be going in the band (since I’m not in WAB). The game is in New Orleans, and they are staying at a $200/night hotel, so it should be a pretty sweet time.

The big game is Sunday, I hope y’all watch. They are showing the game at William’s Arena (for free) if you are interested. It sounds like they might get a band together and play during the commercials and such.

Norfolk, VA

For those that are curious, right now I’m at library in downtown Norfolk, VA. I’m in Norfolk for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Yesterday (Friday), the Gopher’s (#7 seed) creamed the#3 seed, Boston College. Tomorrow at 7pm ET, we play the #1 seed, Duke.

It should be a good time. Although Duke’s band seems pretty dorky (maybe I shouldn’t talk). We got into town on Friday night. Saturday we played at a pepfest thing at a local mall here. It was a competition between the respective bands/cheer squads. We (of course) took first place and won a free movie ticket.

Saturday we tried to go visit Virginia Beach (25 miles away maybe), but the bus service took forever. After about an hour of being on the bus, we had made it half way. So we had to turn around and come home in order to get back for a pep rally or something.

That night, we hung out with the Louisiana Tech band. They were staying at the Marriot Courtyard, which was infinitely nicer than the Radison we were staying at.

Today, we’ve got the day off so I slept in and am now at the library. Some people rented are car and are driving to Washington, D.C.—a 3.5 hour drive!

Ok, I’m sorry this post is grammatically poor and littered with incorrect spellings, but I haven’t the time to proofread it as I have 2 more minutes with the computer.

Hope everything is great back home in the Twin Cities. See y’all on Wednesday.

Sweet Sixteen

I’m headed to Norfolk, VA this weekend to see the Gopher Girls Basketball win the next two games.

Ooh, it’ll be fun!

Although at the moment it looks like I might have to take one of my midterms at 7am on Friday. Here’s to hoping that instead the departure time is later and I can take it at noon like everybody else in my class.

Gopher Women’s Basketball

Well, it has become obvious that I picked the wrong pepband to be in, as the Women’s BBall team just beat the 2 seed Kansas State to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. As I recall, all of the women’s events (that have pepbands—volleyball, hockey, basketball) have now seen post-season play. Contrast this to the men’s basketball team, with our 10th in the Big Ten ranking.

Maybe it’s a good thing I did BB Band because I’d be too busy with trips with all of the WAB events.