About a month ago, I went to Mt. Dora with Amanda to celebrate her birthday with her family.  You can find Amanda’s blog <here> .  At this family gathering there were about 7 munchkins running about.  Most of them belonging to Amanda’s aunts, uncles and close family friends.  So I got the bright idea to go out and swing a couple of them (swing being they hold onto my arms and I twirl them about 3 or 4 feet off the ground).  Immediately, I became a human jungle gym.

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I will try to do some more of these cooking/recipe posts.  I think having pictures to accompany a recipe is pretty nice so that you have an idea of what the stuff your cooking and working with is supposed to look like.  Last night I experimented with making chicken fingers. Here is a shot of my cutting board and chicken breasts:

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DigiE on OCRemix goes by the handle of NemesisTheory on newgrounds.  Apparently, this young DJ (whom is on the rise) is a 22 year old female located in Utrecht, Netherlands.  Because the submission process is so long over at OCRemix (from the time you submit your work until the time it is actually showcased on the OCRemix site) and because OCRemix is exclusively video game remixes, NemesisTheory has hosted much more of her work over on newgrounds.  Over the past 5 years, she has made a total of 55 submissions to newgrounds including not only video game remixes, but techno songs, drum ‘n bass beats and some ambient trance.  Her work truly rivals many “professional” DJs (I put this in quotes as it seems way too easy to be a professional DJ in Techno/Trance/Dance with as much garbage techno that is out there).  In my opinion, her best piece of work is And You Must Dance.  However, browsing her newgrounds profile, I came across several others that I immediately fell in love with.  My favorites of what I have listened to thus far is as follows: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Polar Groove, Russian Roulette, Game Boy Fiend, Shadow Empathy, An Army of One, and Devil’s Dance.

You can click on the diskette image on the above linked newgrounds pages to download the MP3s for the above songs.

I found some pretty good video game sound track remixes on ocremix.  The first is this Donkey Kong Country remix – Lost in Jungle (ocremix page, mp3), it’s pretty soothing.  Next is this Final Fantasy VI remix (ocremix page, mp3).  I’m pretty sure this is a remix of the world map music (World of Balance), I like it and absolutely love FFVI (SNES, PS1).

Next is a remix of a song from Castlevania II (ocremix page, mp3).  The artist who remixed that song, DigiE, also did this remix off of Sonic 3 called Breaking the Ice (ocremix page, mp3).   Furthermore, DigiE also did this remix – You Must Dance (ocremix page, mp3).  This song is by far my favorite of everything DigiE has released on the ocremix!  DigiE’s work is quite phenomenal, I’m thoroughly impressed by You Must Dance.

Finally, I found two remixes done off of Relm‘s theme from FFVI:  Little Painter (ocremix page, mp3) and ‘Arab Painting’ (ocremix page, mp3).  Both, just like the original theme, are very relaxing and something easily you could study while listening to.

On an unrelated note, credit goes to Frank for finding this interesting read on exposing power supply myths (power supplies for computers).

One of my biggest complaints with Windows Vista has been trying to setup a working VPN connection to remotely connect to UCF.  The VPN would grant me a local IP address and would make my home computer appear as though it existed behind UCF’s external firewall as though it were locally connected somewhere on campus.  This (perfectly legal) then gives me remote access to my lab computer and access to shared virtual resources on campus.  I recently found a website which helped me figure out how to setup that working VPN connection to UCF.

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My sister Nichole was recently selected to have her profile appear on UCF’s graduate website.  Her picture is shown on the graduate programs page and her profile can be viewed directly via this link. I am so proud of her – she defends her Master’s in Mathematics Thesis this month!!!

After earning her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics Education, Nichole Shorter decided to pursue a master’s degree in Mathematical Science at UCF, as well. She enjoys the sense of community present in the Department of Mathematics, especially among its graduate students. “The Department of Mathematics holds a tea time called TeaGIF every Friday for students and faculty to get together,” says Shorter. “Between that and various study groups, I have made a lot of friends.”

She is a graduate teaching assistant and tutor for students in the EXCEL program, an undergraduate program designed to increase student success in the first two years of their college career in science, technology, engineering, and math. For her thesis, Shorter is examining how to improve student learning and retention in undergraduate mathematics courses. She has been using cumulative assessments, continuous assessments, and projects in order to help improve student retention and learning. Shorter plans to publish the results of her thesis research in The College Mathematics Journal by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA).

http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/political-pictures-sarah-palin-helping-choose-obama-wink.jpg

Keith Olberman makes fun of VP Debate <here>.

I saw Gabe (PA) recently mention that Jack Thompson Disbarred – good riddance!

This axe commercial is awesome (but is about a year old I think).

Speaking of older commercials, you have seen <this>, haven’t you?  Bears are awesome!

Ronald Jenkees announced his next album, originally estimated to come out in late summer, has been delayed till December.  This comes as both great disappointment and reasonable to me.  I’d rather deal with the delay and enjoy an awesome album in December as opposed to have a mediocre one right now.

I noticed Jeff Lew, again, has slightly changed his killer bean forever website (see previous blog post about speculation about upcoming movie).

A couple of new YSAP videos have been released [#17],[#18] along with a Sn@tchbuckl3r PSA.

My sister recently shared this website (punditkitchen) with me, some of the pictures [1], [2], [3], [4] they show are really hilarious.

One of my favorite forms of exercise is boxing my heavy bag (100 lbs).  I will start out jump roping for 2 minutes, then punching the bag for 11 minutes, then jump roping for another 2 minutes and finally a 1 minute water break.  I jump rope, punch, jump rope and water 4 times back to back spanning a little over an hour. I almost always last for about an hour because the amount of effort that goes into this work out consists of about 10 minutes of preparation before the work out.  I sometimes will use gloves when hitting the bag but for the most part I typically do not – punching with hand wraps only.  The problem is, if I just use hand wraps, my fists will rub against the hand wraps which make contact with the bag.  This constant rubbing will cause my knuckles to bruise.  Therefore, I have to tape my knuckles (literally all of them), and then wrap my hands with hand wraps.  The hand wraps are necessary so that I do not break my wrists when making contact with the heavy bag.  So after taping all my knuckles and then wrapping my hands, filling three water bottles, bringing the jump rope, the bottles and a clock outside with me on the deck, I typically then stay out there for an hour after all that preparation.

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Rocky:  What round is it?

Duke:  15.  One more round.  There’s no stoppin’ us now.  This is our round.  No stoppin’ now!  You start and you don’t stop!  All your strength!  All your power!  All your love!  Everythin’ you’ve got!  To win you gotta knock him out!  Punch and punch till you can’t punch no more!  This is your whole life here!  Do it now!  Now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz4w5h-aX9c&feature=related