Fire At Will

So in case you haven't noticed, I went off and changed my avatar from the picture of me drinking to a new hybrid of Georgia Tech's Buzz logo and various Florida State items (headdress, tomahawk, FSU logo) - it's fitting now that I'm both a Yellow Jacket [undergrad] and a Seminole [grad]. I haven't really done any real image manipulation work in a while, so instead of firing up my copy of Photoshop 8.0, I figured I'd give two other programs a chance: The Gimp and Paint.net. The GIMP [or Gnu Image Manipulation Project] is one hell of a program, but it leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to user-interface. In other words, it's ugly as shit. The new Paint.net [which as it sounds, was written in Microsoft's .NET framework] is merely MS Paint on steroids - it doesn't do everything yet, but it's still a work in progress. Both GIMP and Paint.NET are completely free, so give them a shot.

One website I've stumbled across recently is Exploding Dog. The premise is, somebody sends the artist a phrase and he creates a picture out of it. Go look through a few - they're somewhat simplistic, yet at the same time they're brilliant for their simplicity.

I don't think I ever got around to talking about the variants of one of my favorite drinks, Mountain Dew. While the original and Code Red are both easy to find, the other four lesser known variants I think are much better. Livewire is essentially Sunkist with a kick, and I have to say I like it - though I have to wait till Summer to drink it. Oh, and a Diet Livewire would be nice. Pitch Black was Mountain Dew's newest beverage, a black grape-flavored Mountain Dew. It was interesting to say the least, but probably was far and away my least favorite of the Mountain Dew brand. Mountain Dew Baja Blast (lime flavored) unfortunately is only available from the fountain at Taco Bell, but I really like it. I only say unfortunately cause I'd love to have it more often than my occasional visits to Taco Bell. Supposedly there's a new flavor coming out this spring, ElectoCution. We'll see.

I finally got off my ass and played some multi-player Halo 2, and it's the second best multiplayer FPS I've ever played. The first? Quake 3: Arena. Though maybe I should look into getting one of those SmartJoy FRAG devices that allows you to use a PS/2 mouse and keyboard on the Xbox, since I'm not overly fond of playing FPS games on a controller.

Oscar movie review:

Closer: Okay, this movie didn't really do much for me. The performances were all excellent - Clive Owen was masterful as the jilted lover who gets his revenge, and Natalie Portman stole the show as the seductive young Alice. I really can't recommend this movie to people, because there really wasn't all that much of a plot to speak of.

Hotel Rwanda: Don Cheadle is amazing in this movie. It's the story of a Rwandan hotel that is used by one rogue Hutu who shelters hundreds of Hutu and Tutsi refugees in a Belgian-run hotel. It's Shindler's List in Africa, but still powerful and worth watching. I recommend this, but it's a downer.

The Aviator: Howard Hughes sure was one crazy guy, but Leo DiCaprio sure did one hell of a job portraying him. This movie is worth seeing, but best movie of the year? Probably not.