I don't "crosspost" from my friends' blogs often, but this is worth sharing. My good friend Amber is a very talented craftswoman and a huge fan of Star Wars. Put those together, and what do you get? Awesome homemade character dolls. Observe:

The cuddliest six-limbed death robot you'll see all day.

Yes, she made that with her bare hands. She has been working on these for months, and this is her third complete doll. I'm not really into Star Wars- or crocheting, for that matter- but I recognize talent when I see it. Apparently I'm not the only one who was impressed. The post got shared, Buzzed, Tweeted, re-blogged, word spread, and soon someone at Lucasfilm took notice. The editor of StarWars.com contacted her for an email interview to be posted on the website. Needless to say, she's like a kid in a.... Star Wars convention.

This is what the blogosphere is all about- sharing things that matter to us, hoping that someone takes an interest. For many, that's a small group of friends. For a few, it's a chance at a brief flash of Internet fame. It looks like Amber will get her 15 minutes.

Not that I'd ever start a band. I have all the musical talent of a baboon in a tool shed, and my lifelong aspiration of learning to play the guitar would probably be a lesson in self-humiliation. However, were it ever to happen, I wouldn't have to worry about choosing a name. Props if you can find the joke or reference behind each name.

10. Autotune (pop/electronic)

9. Wrong Foot Forward (dance)

8. Creative Uncommons (parody)

7. WildWeazel and the Cool Dudes (retro)

6. Tossing Tiaras (CCM)

5. Steel City (alternative)

4. Unending Saga (hardcore)

3. Going Nowhere (punk)

2. Shredded Cheddar (metal)

1. De Oppresso Liber (hard rock)

In case you've been preoccupied with other things like sportsball games: it snowed. A lot.

In the aftermath of what is being called "the worst blizzard since '93", "one of the biggest winter storms on record", and "a crap ton of snow", Pittsburgh is kind of a mess. A very cold, very white mess.

My department was planning to go skiing (read: snowboarding) Saturday, but it got postponed by a day after a foot of snow was predicted in the mountains and the bus company got cold feet.

On Friday night several of us went to a restaurant across the street for a birthday party. A few inches of snow had just fallen suddenly, so the road and sidewalk were already a mess. The temperature had dropped well below freezing so the falling snow was like tiny ice crystals. We watched it come down hard for the next few hours, until at 11:00 the employees kicked us out so they could go home before it got any worse. We all went out into the deserted street and had a snowball fight before parting ways. At this point there was nearly 6 inches on the ground and it was still falling. Bus and shuttle service has been suspended, so a few opted to hold out in the "Cave" while the rest of us marched home Bear Grylls style.

I woke up late Saturday morning to find over a foot of snow outside. Cars were buried, trees were down, and streets were barely recognizable. Assuming that we would still be skiing the next day, I didn't bother going out in it. It wasn't going anywhere soon. Then the trip was postponed again, until next weekend, because all of the surrounding counties had declared a state of emergency and so the buses could not operate.

Today I ventured out and walked to the only church I thought I could get to. By my best estimate, we have about 12-16 inches. None of the roads have been cleared, and most sidewalks have only narrow stomped paths. The temperature has been well below freezing so the snow is perfectly preserved. There is very little traffic on the roads but plenty of people are out walking and many businesses are open.

That doesn't include Carnegie Mellon. Due to the still dangerous road conditions, city officials urged universities to cancel classes tomorrow. CMU complied, after having initially issued an announcement that we would be returning to normal operation. That makes this a surprise 3-day weekend, and my first ever college snow day! So while you're all trudging through "Super Bowl Monday", I'll be wading through Schenley Park.

By the way, the weather forecast claims sub-freezing temperatures all week, accompanied by snow, snow, and snow on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, respectively.

If you haven't heard about the upcoming "sci-fi" horror movie Legion, consider yourself fortunate. Hollywood has long had a fascination with twisting the image of Christ and Christianity, but this one takes the distortion to a whole new level. Just from the trailer and a short plot summary on Wikipedia, I can infer the following "doctrines" behind the movie:

10. The final judgment will be a physical extermination by angels (Revelation 20:12)
9. Angels can be destroyed by humans (2 Kings 19:35)
8. Christ's second coming will be another physical birth (1 Thessalonians 4:16)
7. Christ's return is not guaranteed (Revelation 22:12-13)
6. God is not omnipotent or fully sovereign (Jeremiah 32:27)
5. God and Christ can be in conflict (John 6:38)
4. God changes and may break his promises (Hebrews 6:16-18)
3. God is evil, or at least not wholly good (Deuteronomy 32:4)
2. God's love is not eternal or unconditional (Isaiah 54:10)
1. Paul Bettany is capable of portraying the archangel Michael (Revelation 12:7-8)

HOLY CRAPS, it's 2010! Still waiting for that flying car.

A new year, a new decade, a new semester, finally a new post. This may be a non-blogging record for me.

It has recently come to my attention that I have not posted anything to my blog for quite a long span of time (in Internet reckoning) or indeed given my few anxious readers any indication that I am in fact still alive. 'Alive' is an ambiguous term, which I here use in the biological sense, in that my body is in fact metabolizing.

Other than that, what have I been up to since my last real post 5 months ago? Well, a lot. As I pointed out then, I was about to undertake a brutal academic gauntlet of courses, projects, and gnashing of teeth. I managed to survive the first semester, rumored to be the worst- except for the other two which are just as bad.

I'll save you the gory details, but let's just say that it was an intense 4 months. While most grad students take a course load of about 8 credits, we take the equivalent of 17 (51 "units"). That's more than I ever took as an undergraduate, plus I have a (very) part-time research assistantship with CMU's CyLab and the Software Engineering Institute to help with financial things like feeding myself. It was all fairly interesting stuff, but 70 hours per week is more than I care to spend on academics. My courses included 3 of the core MSE courses: Managing Software Development, Methods: Deciding What to Design, and Formal Models of Software Systems. I also took an elective Usable Privacy and Security, and a lamentably required technical communications course (being the only native English speaker in my branch of the program) which amounted to little more than English Grammar Quirks, Editing Tips, and Tangential Etymology.Thus was my demise. Somehow I managed to pull it all off with a 3.5 term GPA and a bit of income.

In the meantime I also grew a beard in recognition of No Shave November, an event which is unique in that it actually takes less time and effort to participate than not. It all started on Halloween, when on a sudden impulse I decided to become Chuck Bartowski. I shaved my entire face for the first time in 4 years, just before November 1- the perfect setup for an entire month of unregulated beardage. Why, you ask? Because it's manly. And to top it all off, I removed it in stages to produce several varieties of beard in the process, then shaved my head as well. (It grew back already.)

This was soon followed by Christmas break, wherein I retrained myself to sleep and be lethargic. I even got in a couple games of Civ3 and some serious Mount&Blade action. It actually worked all too well, despite my initial difficulty in reminding myself that I had nothing in particular to do. "Nothing to do" actually sums up the whole vacation quite well, as it was one of the most uneventful 3 weeks in recent memory. In fact I could probably describe everything I did in a single 140-character tweet:

eat, sleep, gaming, Avatar, movie marathon, friend's wedding in TN, visit friend in hosp, buy Xmas gifts 12/23, stock up on food, return 1/9

Yep, that just about does it. The wedding in Tennessee and surrounding road trip was by far the most noteworthy event of it all, but I will not go into detail. As indicated, I came back to the Pittsburgh last weekend just in time for classes to resume.

And that brings us to 2010 and the second-worst semester of them all. I'm starting to wonder if the only real difference is that this time around we have the confidence of knowing that we've already survived it once. If I can manage, I'll follow up with a brief rundown of this semester's torments and maybe some other posts that don't remind me of my unfortunate plight.

If it doesn't kill you, it will only kill your blog.