Leopard Log: Day 4 or 5

Sorry I had no time to report over the last day or so, so here we are. So far nothing new aside from the amazingness of the OS. It is soooo sleek and fast. I have noticed that the start-up and shut-down times have decreased since tiger. Well I read that over 2 million copies of Leopard have been sold since its release so thats 2 million people like us, basking in its glory.

Leopard Log: Day 2

So the second full day of Leopard was just as good as the first. I stumbled onto how one would restore email messages through time machine. Open Mail and have the window sitting on the desktop. Then simply open Time Machine and the Mail window slides into place ready to find your lost messages. About that little icon problem, well it fixed itself last night and has not occurred again even though I have been deleting more useless free apps. Yay day two= flawless victory.

Leopard Log: Day 1

So for the next few weeks or more (Depends on how long it takes for me to get tired of doing this or lose interest.) I will be updating the world on how each day goes by using Leopard.
Well today was great. The first full day of use and everything is rolling just fine. The Wallpapers are amazing, I can't seem to decide which one I want to use. I don't see how I, or anyone, survived without quicklook. It really makes finding documents and other file types easy and is a great complement to the Coverflow view. Though I don't use Coverflow in iTunes I love the way it works in Finder. Spaces has been a dream. It is very easy to use and is surprisingly useful to the everyday consumer. Time Machine is great as well. I have found myself deleting files on purpose just to watch them be brought back. It is very simple and easy to use and looks great. So those things are all great but we have one "snag" for today. In my Applications stack I made the first app and the app that shows up as the icon was Address Book. I noticed just a second ago that it was a strange bright blue-greenish color, definately not what it was supposed to be. I had been deleting some apps when I noticed it, but nothing was wrong with the way the icon looked in the Finder and I hadn't deleted any important app that would control this. So it may be due to the major changes I made to the folder and therfore the stack but it doesn't effect anything else. I will see if the icon has fixed itself tomorrow, but for now I am using a different ordering so it doesn't show up. Overall the first day of Leopard has been great, it is tons of fun to show to my family and friends.

MORE LEOPARD!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so I know one of us has already posted Leopard pics, but i really want to also, so...

Spaces with the Apple Final Cut Studio apps open


A picture of Time Machine


Time Machine while it's cycling through windows


A Firefox window going into the doc


The dock


So yeah. Awesome huh?

OSX 10.5 is finally out. After waiting 2 hours at the Apple Store we finally have it. Here are some screenshots:

Time Machine, Desktop, Spaces, and Coverflow in Finder. 

Yay, it is AWESOME!!

iMovie '08 Review

This is a little late but I was inspired by the upcoming release of OSX 10.5 . Ok so like any mac freak I went out and bought iLife '08 and iWork '08. I will be talking about iMovie '08 a very important part of the overall iLife '08 package. So I installed iLife '08 and was very pleased with the new iPhoto, iDvd, iWeb, and GarageBand. As you can see iMovie was not mentioned and here's why. So iMoive '06 was amazing. Video effects, audio effects, a time line and clip view, multiple audio tracks and a few other features were included. The user interface was simple and fit the times. Now iMovie '08 the new user interface is very pretty. The library approach to organizing files is very nice. But what happened to all of the features? No more video and audio effects? Not as many titles options and not as many transitions? So what can you do with the new iMovie? Well I guess you can stitch together clips and make videos with a single background track and limited sound effects. Why would you cut down on the OLD features? Well I asked the apple guy at one of the Apple Retail Stores and he basically said they left it open for updates and more third party compatibility. I haven't seen any of those yet, not that they won't come. Luckily iMovie '06 can be downloaded off of the apple site anytime. Not a good iMovie. It was so hated actually that the ratings for iLife '08 on Apple's site is around a 3. But we carry on because we use Final Cut Pro anyway. No harm done, just don't mess up anything else. :p

Vitamin E, Vitamin A, and Selenium

About vitamin A overdose, taken from Wikipedia:
"As vitamin A is fat-soluble, disposing of any excesses taken in through diet is a lot harder than with water-soluble vitamins B and C. As such, vitamin A toxicity can result. This can lead to nausea, jaundice, irritability, anorexia (not to be confused with anorexia nervosa, the eating disorder), vomiting, blurry vision, headaches, muscle and abdominal pain and weakness, drowsiness and altered mentality.In chronic cases, hair loss, drying of the mucous membranes, fever, insomnia, fatigue, weight loss, bone fractures, anemia, and diarrhea can all be evident on top of the symptoms associated with less serious toxicity."

About vitamin E overdose, from Drugs.com:
"Symptoms of a vitamin E overdose may include fatigue, weakness, nausea, headache, blurred vision, flatulence, and diarrhea."

About selenium overdose, from Wikipedia:
Exceeding the Tolerable Upper Intake Level of 400 micrograms per day can lead to selenosis. Symptoms of selenosis include a garlic odour on the breath, gastrointestinal disorders, hair loss, sloughing of nails, fatigue, irritability and neurological damage. Extreme cases of selenosis can result in cirrhosis of the liver, pulmonary edema and death.

Right now, based on the fact that I'm having the worst headache I've ever had, having diarrhea, constantly on and off disillusioned, tired, and just really not feeling good, I thing I need to lay off on all those nutrient filled drinks. Yeah I'm not too hot right now. I just hope I don't die.

New TMBG Video

Yay:
"
BRAND-NEW VIDEO "THE MESOPOTAMIANS" IS REALLY OUT!
Directed by David Cowles, animated by Chris Timmons
vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=19482974

ATTENTION: The band is respectfully requesting ALL TMBG fans to FORWARD THIS LINK to ALL their friends, post it on their blogs and social networking pages. Think of the potential exposure!
"

I think that quote says it all.

Random Stuff

Ok so I walked in to the bank and this guy came up to me and said hey what are you doing and I said hey what are you doing and he said what are you doing in a bank and I said I was getting money from my bank account and he was like why would you do that and I was like because I wanted to go buy something and he was like why would you want to go buy something and I said because its fun to buy stuff and he said:
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
And I was like why would I care about that and he said its important to know about finances and I was like that sound boring and he said what kind of retirement do you want a retirement in which you live from social security check to social security check or a retirement in which youre in control of you money and I said I would like to have control of my money and live a good life and he said well then save up. Then I left the bank.

This is a research paper about Edward Arlington Robinson. I just really felt like posting something totally random. Enjoy.

Alone by the Hand of Edwin Arlington Robinson

Edwin Arlington Robinson, born in 1869 to a wealthy family in Maine, was the youngest of three sons. He pursued poetry even as a child and was the youngest member of a local poetry club. He attended Harvard, but personal tragedy including the death of his mother and father set aside his personal goals. A few years later, his middle brother committed suicide by drug overdose. Robinson lived in poverty until President Teddy Roosevelt began to patronize him, arranging a job for Robinson at a customhouse. After Roosevelt left office, Robinson was forced to quit. In 1910, Robinson became critically acclaimed for “The Town Down the River”, and won three Pulitzer Prizes in 1922, 1925, and 1928. He later died in 1935. In the poems “Miniver Cheevy”, “Mr. Flood’s Party”, “Reuben Bright”, “Eros Turannos”, “The Mill”, and “Richard Cory”, Robinson shows the agony of his early life through the theme of loneliness in man’s soul.
The loneliness of a man “lost in the modern world” is seen in “Miniver Cheevy” (Untermeyer 53). Miniver Cheevy is called “child of scorn”, denoting his worthlessness in the eyes of the people. Miniver Cheevy “assailed the seasons”, basically cursing life, as people do in fits of personal loss and loneliness. Cheevy wept that he was ever born, and one might weep if he felt disliked and alone. In the next five stanzas, Miniver Cheevy dreams his wish to live in medieval, bygone times. Miniver Cheevy must be unhappy since there is no one to comfort him. The end of the seventh stanza sums up his living in illusory worlds to escape from loneliness, stating: “Miniver thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, / And thought about it.” The last stanza begins with “Miniver Cheevy, born too late” suggesting that Miniver Cheevy might have had friends had he lived in the medieval time period, and continues with “Scratched his head and kept on thinking”, again reiterating Cheevy escaping from his loneliness in the real world. Robinson writes: “Miniver coughed, and called it fate.” The cough might have been “suggesting pulmonary tuberculosis and/ or the pneumonia to which alcoholics are prey” (Cervo 213). The poem ends summing up Cheevy’s need to live in illusory worlds, and his lack of concern for his health, both culprits of loneliness: “And kept on drinking.”
Much like Miniver Cheevy’s loneliness, “Mr. Flood’s Party” shows the loneliness of an “aging drunkard” who outlives his friends (Lucas 27). “Mr. Flood’s Party” shows loneliness in the first line, which states: “Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night”. In the second stanza, Flood begins to talk to himself and carry on an imaginative party, a sure sign of loneliness (Pack 74). He becomes filled with drink to wash away his pain from loneliness. He sets the jug, his only treasure, down “as a mother lays her sleeping child”, so carefully as if “knowing that most things break”. Mr. Flood takes precautions in setting down the jug because it only can stave off the total encroachment of loneliness. Flood continues his conversation with himself, until Robinson ends the poem summing up the origin of Old Eben Flood’s loneliness: “And there was nothing in the town below- / Where strangers would have shut many doors / That many friends would have opened long ago.” Mr. Flood experiences loneliness through outliving all of his past friends.
Just as “Mr. Flood’s Party” shows the loneliness of a man who has lost his friends, the poem “Reuben Bright” shows the loneliness of a man who has lost his wife. In this poem, Robinson focuses on “moments of sadness, desperation, and loss” (Lucas 35). The poem begins with a description of the butcher, but then switches to his reaction to the death of his wife. He is described as “shaking with grief and fright,” a reasonable reaction to the loneliness caused by the personal loss of a loved one. He cries so hard that it “made the women cry to see him cry”, until the grief from loneliness totally overcomes Bright. Much like the ending of “Richard Cory”, it is rather shocking to read the second part of the last line: “and tore down the slaughter-house.” This “wild grief” was the culmination of Ruben Bright’s loneliness caused by the loss of his wife (Hall 12).
While Reuben Bright is alone due to the loss of his wife, the inevitable loneliness of a couple is shown in “Eros Turannos”. The poem begins with Robinson stating that the woman dislikes the man with whom she is having a love affair. As Donald Hall explains, the woman in “Eros Turranos has a love affair only to avoid “solitary old age” (Hall 9). The woman fears that losing this man would cause her to be “Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs [dams]”, meaning that she would drown and die in a sea of loneliness. This plan seems to be a double-edged sword, though, because disliking her lover puts her in a constant state of loneliness, as she really has no actual lover. The gossiping villagers force her to isolate herself in her house. At the end, “Each [of the characters] is finally left empty and isolate” states Anna Blumenthal (411). The two lovers are again left separate and in a state of loneliness.
Sharing with “Eros Turranos” the connection between loneliness and a couple, “The Mill” is about the loneliness created by personal loss and the accompanying “suicide and failure” (Hall 10). As Glorianna Locklear said, “‘The Mill’ is … a sad tale of double suicide brought on by the encroachment of the modern world and personal loss” (175). The miller seems to show loneliness saying “There are no millers anymore”. The industrial revolution has made the antiquated miller job obsolete, so he was fired. This realization of no longer being needed creates loneliness, as this was his livelihood, and so the miller hung himself. His wife feels loneliness at the loss of her husband and provider. Therefore, the miller’s wife commits suicide drowning herself. This double tragedy showed loneliness through the personal loss and failure of a husband and wife.
While “The Mill” showed loneliness in a couple, “Richard Cory” shows how even the rich, who appear to have everything, can be lonely. The poem begins with a description of Cory, calling him “a gentlemen from sole to crown”, “clean favored”, and “imperially slim”, all denoting that he is of high status and wealth. Part of the second stanza states “But still he fluttered pulses when he said, / ‘Good-morning’”. David Kelly explains, Cory “created abnormal excitement with such regular expressions as ‘Good-morning’” (117). Such simple expressions would only be said in such a way if Cory had no friend to talk to, denoting loneliness. In the third stanza, the line “In fine, we thought that he was everything” is in past tense, denoting this is not believed anymore. Also, the word fine has many different meanings to suggest his loneliness and ultimate choice to end his loneliness. Kelly wrote that fine could mean “the end” as in music, foreshadowing Cory’s death of loneliness, or could mean “a monetary penalty”, as the common people want to take all his money from him because they do not know what it is like to be in Cory’s position (117). The last stanza of the poem begins with the common man ironically stating his plight of life without money, and then ends with Cory, despite his wealth, making the ultimate decision based on his loneliness and disconnect from society: “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, / Went home and put a bullet through his head.”
Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote about the theme of loneliness often in his poetry. This was understandable, as he was separated from society at some points in his life (Cowley 132). In “Richard Cory” and “The Mill” the characters approach loneliness by committing suicide. In others, such as “Mr. Flood’s Party” and “Miniver Cheevy” the loneliness leads to constant drinking of alcohol. In “Reuben Bright”, the main character becomes filled with rage because of loneliness, and in “Eros Turannos” the supposed cure for loneliness ultimately leads to more loneliness. All of these characters share the fact that they in some way become outcasts from society, leading to loneliness. E. A. Robinson often wrote about loneliness in the souls of many different peoples in his poetry.




Works Consulted

• Blumenthal, Anna Sabol. “Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Tilbury Town Poems and William James.” Dalhouse Review. Winter 1991/1992: 411-437.
• Cervo, Nathan A. “Robinson’s ‘Miniver Cheevy.’” The Explicator. Summer 2004: 213.
• Cowley, Malcolm. “Edwin Arlington Robinson: Defeat and Triumph.” New England Writers and Writing. Ed. Donald W. Faulkner. Biddeford, Maine: UP of New England, 1996.
• Hall, Donald. The Essential Robinson. New York: Ecco Press, 1994.
• Joyner, Nance Carol. “Edwin Arlington Robinson.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 54. Ed. Peter Quatermain. Detroit: The Gale Group, 1987.
• Kelly, David. “‘Richard Cory.’” Poetry for Students, Volume 4. Ed. Mark K. Ruby. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale Research, 1999.
• Locklear, Glorianna. “Robinson’s ‘The Mill.’” The Explicator. Spring 1993: 175.
• Lucas, John. “The Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson.” Moderns & Contemporaries: Novelists, Poets, Critics. New York: Harvester Press, 1985.
• Pack, Robert. “Laughter at the Abyss: Hardy and Robinson.” The Long View: Essays on the Discipline of Hope and Poetic Craft. Boston: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
• Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Collected Poems. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
• Untermeyer, Louis, “Edwin Arlington Robinson.” American Poetry Since 1900. Baltimore: Henry Holt, 1923.

Videos Page Up And Running!!!

After completely recoding the videos page it is ready to be graced by your eyes. There are six videos on right now but that number will increase daily. Enjoy!
~~MTCP Web Guy

Site Makeover!

Well now the site looks a lot better some places, a little better in some places and is still under construction in other places. Thanks to iWeb '08 we have been able to drastically change our site. We plan to put the videos on in a non Youtube way, possibly by directly uploading them. The videos page is not fully functional right now and we are not sure why so please bear with us.
Thanks
~~MTCP Web Guy

Ok so about Mr. A...

Yeah... See we're really lazy and maybe one day we will get together and work on Mr. Apocalypse... but it'll be a while. In the meantime, you can read a working summary.

A man comes and takes Benjamin Franklin captive who is from the future today. He is cloned in the future and becomes: bumbumbum: Mr. Apocalypse. Now, because Benjamin Frankin has been taken out of the past, the past is just going insane. Also, Mr. Apocalypse is totally anhiallating the future today. At this same time in the present, gourd man is on his quest to defeat the sad sack with the group of children that follow you around from the Bahamas. Now, a man (the same man who got ben frank out of the past) goes and gets Mr. Apocalypse from the future today (which mr. apocalypse has totally anhiallated) and brings him to the present. This is when the originally planned story starts. Mr. Apocalypse uses his evil plan of daylights slavings time (the opposite of daylight savings time which he thought up in the future today) to begin destruction on the present. The problem is, he doesnt know that Arizona and Japan completely ignore his system of daylight slavings time, and they both are an hour behind what is daylight savings time because they are not recognizing daylight savings time, but not not recognizing daylight slavings time, they just completely ignore it. So, Japan and Arizona (a glitch in the system) last for an hour after the apocalypse and are really rallied up to defeat Mr. Apocalypse. From here, the team of heroes (wagon wheel of premature judgement, lunch the half troll, toad the wet sprocket, etc.) comes. Of course, this team of heroes never really does anything, but gourd man pushes and Easy button and Mr. Apocalypse is defeated. I need to add that during this, about when the battle almost gets started, the evil man who captures Ben Frank accidentally fell in the cloning machine and a good clone was made of him, and he goes to the past past before the evil version of him and tells ben frank to ignore a guy that comes to the past and looks like him, thus apparently saving the past so the present will stay stable.

Now: there are two possible endings: of course Mr. Apocalypse is defeated in both.

First: ben frank does not listen to good guy, and is captured, and the last lines are to the effect of: "wait guys isn't the past still in danger?" "nah, time doesn't work li..." (everything destroyed by giant black hole)

Second: this is when ben frank did listen, so everything is ok and great in the past.
"Yes! We have defeated Mr. Apocalypse!" "Uhh... didn't he already destroy the future?"

The slavings and savings have been double checked


Yeah it's a bit complicated, but that's what makes it fun. Maybe one day it will get off the ground.

So anyway i was going to the drug store yesterday, and this guy comes up to me and asks me, "where did you get you belt?" and i said, i don't know, i found it in a dumpster. and he said how did you find it in a dumpster that's kind of weird and i said i know. it is. but then he walked in the store and saw him buy three packs of cheese sticks and a coke. I asked him where he got the three packs of cheese sticks and the cokes from and he said from the dumpster. And i said i just saw you get those from the shelf. How could those be from the dumpster? and he said oh yeah you did see me get them. And he bought them and asked for my belt. I gave him my belt and he drove off.

Good cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from lame political jokes.

Well, with Mr. Apocalypse pre production rolling (and behind schedule), we are working hard to update stuff. It'll stilll be awhile due to our exorbitant amount of laziness, but it will be done hopefully sometime soon.

Anyway, the title. Yeah, I read a lot of lame "You have two cows" political jokes and now they are stuck in my head.

For those of you that have read the sci-fi conspiracy blog, you know how sci-fi is trying to force all of the good sci-fi shows off the air. Also, you probably know that Stargate SG-1 is ending at its tenth season. Some research of mine says that there will be two direct-to-DVD stargate sg-1 movies (yay) and a new TV series called Stargate Universe! Exciting!