Flummox Should Be Destroyed and Removed From the English Language

The headline in the sports section of today's paper is "Bucks Flummox Spurs".

A search on google for the word "flummox "results in about 90,000 page hits.

If a word only appears 90,000 times in google's index, it should be removed from the English language.

Where do I file the paperwork to get that done?

Movie Observations and Questions

I watched Star Wars: Clone Wars and Solaris (1972) last night and I have some questions.

1. Is Ziro the Hutt from Louisiana or Mississippi? I'm thinking Louisiana because of his Mardi Gras style headgear.
   
2. Should a creature with no legs (like Ziro) say things like "Let's make a run for it"?
3. Solaris is a very slow movie. It is so slow that Tess was able to follow the plot. It's so slow that I paused the movie a few times and I couldn't tell. It's so slow that it seemed like time, itself, was flowing backwards. It's so slow that by the end of the movie I had learned Russian.
   
4. Do astronauts really wear monogrammed pajamas in space like Kris Kelvin in Solaris did in at least one scene?
5. What's up with that horrible 5 second weightless scene in Solaris?
   

Tess Thinks She's Awesome

She's going to grow up to be a ham. I wonder what parent she got that from?

Python Question

I've been working on my game, Stones. I think I want the game engine to have something called a "future event list". I'm struggling with how to implement this.

An event consists, essentially, of a timestamp and the code you want to execute when the event happens. An event is created with all this information and then inserted into the event list. The code is executed sometime later. I'm not sure how to specify the code to be executed and how to execute it.

I'd probably like an event to consist of an object that the event is happening to (or is causing), a method to call on that object, and parameters to pass to that method. Is there a slick way to specify, store, and use those parameters when the method is executed?

One way to do it is to have every method that can be an event take an event object as its only parameter. When an event is created, it is loaded up with the object, the object's method to call, and the parameters the method will use. Essentially the event would act as the "execution environment" for the method. If you need to pass a parameter to the method, you specify that parameter in the event. When an event is processed/executed, the method is called on the object with the event as the parameter.

The above scheme seems to have some downsides. For one, you lose the method's signature (list of parameters). So, it's harder to see what needs to be passed to the method. You'd have to read the method to see what it needs. Also, you lose the ability to call the method in a "normal" way, that is, without building up an event object first.

One way to get around the two above problems is to specify a special "eventable" method for each method you want to use in an event. This method would accept an event as a parameter and then call the corresponding "non-eventable" method and pass the second method the needed parameters from the event object. This would work but it would seem to uglify the code a good bit.

Another way to do it would be to have every "eventable" method have all of its parameters be "None" by default and have the last parameter be an event that is also "None" by default. If called with an event, the method gets the values it needs from the event. Otherwise, it uses the parameters passed in. This way of doing it avoids the above two problems but each method would have to have special code to get the parameters from the right source.

So, my question is this. What is/are the best way(s) to save an object, a method on that object, and the parameters the method needs for future execution in a python program?

I'm sure one of the thousands of python programmers who read my blog will have the answer.

Old Pictures of Yourself Are Funny to Look At

This picture was taken sometime in the interval 1990 to 1993. I probably weighed about 145 or 150 pounds.

The Red Dot Was Way Too Close to My House

There is a page on the Internet where I can check to see where the red dot is. When I checked just now, the red dot was very close to my house. I got very afraid.

Eagle at McClain! (and a 64)

On hole 10, I made a 200+ foot shot for an eagle, 2! I had 6 witnesses. Woot!

CoryS still beat me with a 62 (the scorecard shows 61 but I added wrongly). He shot par (29) on the back nine (which is amazing).

Exploring the Effects of Static Electricity on a 10-Month-Old

No 10-month-olds were harmed in the making of this picture.

SNL Report Card 53% (F)

* Opening Skit 85%

The Hillary and Bill characters are great. However, they are really old.

* Host 95%

John Mackovic is an ok host and his host's bit was really good. I liked the reaction shots of the children. I took off 5 points because of his somewhat hideous clothing.

* Breathright "Commercial" 35%

I took off 65% due to the Adam Sandler style crude attempt at humor.

* Hot Chick Office Party 95%

This was mostly very funny. 5% off due to a small amount of crude humor.

* Cool Obama "Commercial" 50%

I don't know about the Obama character. He's not as good as the Clintons or the Bushes.

* Italian TV Show 35%

John Mackovic imitation was awesome. Blurred out Italian porno was not awesome. Oversized Italian kid who smoked was a plus. Overall a fairly large failure.

* Pony Express "Commercial" 60%

Not so funny.

* Twins in Sweaters Skit 90%

Excitement over getting a calculator for Christmas? Awesome! Nerdy twins! Double awesome! Normal brother to play straight man. Not bad! How old was that calculator? 89 times 56 equals whoah?

* Musical Guest T.I? 0%

Rap isn't music

* Weekend Update 70%

Amy Poehler is back! Woot! OJ joke lead. Good choice. Good joke. OJ joke followed by font joke.

Plaxico Burros "guest appearance". He's too heavy to be Plaxico. Why does he have to play all the black guys? Oh. Right. Pretty ok bit.

Cyber Monday joke was very lame. They are dieing.

Wow. Boy George. He looks awesome. That thing where "I go to the other room to be weird"? Nothing wrong with that. Seth thinks it's funny. Nice hat. Gets better and better.

Deer joke died. Drunk woman wearing flip flops? Not funny. Seth doesn't get the metric system. 15 centimeters is 5.9 inches.

David the nine year old kid was very lame.

Bush joke was very lame.

Overall, very middle of the road.

* The Lost Works of Judy Blume 50%

Mackovic dressed as a high school girl? Nice start. However, a failure.

* "Music Video" 0%

I was not amused. Try to be funny.

* Second Performance of T.I. 0%

Rap is not music.

* Jaccuzzi 70%

A sword fight in a hot tub. Nice. Otherwise pretty lame.

Car Czar?

The federal government is going to have a "Car Czar" to oversee the automotive bailout? I wonder how that fits into our Five-Year Plan?

On a related note, my family has been assigned to live in a commune near Boerne. I've very happy about that. We could have been sent to a forced labor camp in North Texas. I was worried because my political views are on the Internet.

Maybe we weren't sent into oblivion because Gina's nursing skills are just too valuable to waste (with universal health care right around the corner). Hopefully she'll be assigned to a hospital she'll like!

77 out of 80 Points

I got my final back in my Computer Architecture class tonight. I did better than I thought I was going to do. I just missed three true/false questions.

I have until the 10th to finish a project (worth 25% of my grade) and then I'm done with school for the semester.

I'm probably not going to take a class next semester. There is no class being offered that I haven't already taken that I'm interested in.

I wonder what I'm going to do with all that extra time I'm going to have? The possibilities are only limited by my imagination and my budget. Here are some ideas:

1. Play more disc golf and work on my game.
2. Work on my video game, Stones.
3. Read more. I wonder if there are any Neal Stephenson books that would take four or five months to read?
   
4. Study some computer related subject that will either be interesting or useful to me.
5. Exercise more and work on eating better. This will help me get down to my target weight of 190 pounds.
6. Catch up on some of the stuff that needs to be done around the house.
7. Take some weekend trips to somewhere.
8. Play more board games. My Cosmic Encounter group has been trying to get a game together for a couple of weeks now. I just bought Power Grid.
   
9. Work on my novel. I've been stuck on five chapters and about 6,000 words for months now. Princess Bujale will never get done at this rate.
   
10. Work on my Spanish (I made about 1,000 Spanish flashcards tonight). Yo soy mas grande del mundo por la vaca?
11. Get more sleep.
12. Teach Tess how to talk. Talking is important.
13. Go watch the Spurs or the San Antonio Missions or the Rampage or the Silver Stars.
14. Blog more. Finish some of the website content I've been working on.
15. Go through my notes and do something about them. Organize them. Finish some of the items on my "to do" list.
16. Rethink everything.
17. Go through my books and throw some of them out.
18. Have more fun.
19. Work on the yard.
20. Do better 9am to 6pm each day.
21. Make some more web comics.
22. Meet everybody I know in San Antonio for either lunch or dinner.
23. Invent some more words. "Booya" and "Woot" have been very successful but what have I done lately?
    

Philosophical Question

So, Gina and I are watching the second season of The Office on DVD. The second season is on four discs. Each disc has six episodes. Each episode has some footage that didn't make it into the episode. This footage is labeled "deleted scenes". The philosophical question is this: Did the events from the deleted scenes really happen or not?