Back in August of 2005, my wife took some videos of me using an Aerobie Orbiter boomerang.  Since YouTube wasn’t launched until November of 2005, I didn’t know of a good way of sharing those videos online back then.  So, I did what anyone would have done and hosted the videos on my own PC, posting direct links to the videos on this blog.  My blog post from back then can be found here.  Surprisingly, those links no longer work.

In any case, I finally got around to combining the videos into one and posting it on YouTube.  Here it is, in all of its glory:

The main reason I did this is because Google searches for Aerobie + Orbiter + Video are one of the main sources of traffic to my blog, as sad as that is.  Now people will be able to watch the video that Google directed them to.

As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of Microsoft HD View.  I think it’s the best way to explore large, panoramic images.  The problem was that it was difficult to share your own HD View images online.  This new utility solves that problem (for the most part), since it lets you embed HD View controller on a web page that links to any image online.  So, I can post an image on Flickr and create an HD View controller on my blog that links to the Flickr image.  Here’s an example:

You need to install the HD View plug-in in order for it to work.  That’s not a major drawback for me.  Make sure you try the full screen feature – that’s the best way to view it.

Instructions can be found at the official HD View Blog.

I've become a weary of the Hollywood trend of reboots and origin stories.  As an act of reductio ad absurdum, I'm going to throw these ideas out there to hopefully shock people into realizing how ludicrous this fad is:

• The Godfather Origins: Fredo Begins
• Gladiator: The Unnecessary Backstory of Maximus
• Pirates of the Caribbean Beginnings: The Rise of Jack Sparrow
• The Matrix Beta: Morpheus Appears
• Star Wars Origins: Insurgency of the Sith!
• The Bourne Filler Material: The Formation of Treadstone
• James Bond: From The Archives of MI6: Part 1: Agent 001
• The Harry Potter Chronicles:  Dumbledore Just Shows Up One Day
• The Terminator: The Programming of Skynet: Part 1: Requirements Gathering

Of course it could backfire and actually give people ideas.  Maybe I should just keep quiet.

I’ve created a Jeopardy application in Microsoft Excel.  I wanted a Jeopardy application that could be run as a presentation and would not require the score to be tracked on paper.  Excel worked well because it can store questions / answers in an easily editable tabular format, keep score with it’s mathematical formulas, and provide a decent interactive user interface using it’s built-in graphical functions and programmability.

I used it for my church’s youth group about a year ago, and it worked well.  I’ve made some enhancements since then and will probably make more in the future, but I thought I’d post the current one now in case anyone else finds it useful.

It can be downloaded here:

It is a macro-enabled workbook, so if you’re concerned about security you can look over the code before enabling the macros.

The only customization that’s needed is for the questions and answers to be filled in for each game, using the QuestionData and AnswerData worksheets.

You make these up yourself, get them from one of the numerous trivia sites on the web, or as prefer, get them from http://www.j-archive.com/, which contains searchable question/answer data from episodes of Jeopardy back to 1983.

Here’s a sample of a game with question/answer data already filled in:

The presenter will need a printed copy the answers, unless he can memorize them.

When you’re finished adding the questions and answers, switch to the Jeopardy worksheet and save the file.  When you’re ready to play, click the Begin button on that worksheet.  The rest is fairly self-explanatory.  When all of the questions have been used, the app will automatically go to Final Jeopardy.

The application is set up for three players.  For youth group, I found it useful to divide the larger group into three teams with multiple people on each team.

The one aspect of Jeopardy that’s pretty difficult to replicate is the buzzer system.  I didn’t attempt that with this application.  The simplest way to do this, I found, is to have the players shout out their team name or number in order to buzz in.  When I tried it this way, there was very little controversy about which team buzzed in first.  The presenter or an independent judge can make the call in cases where there is disagreement.

If you improve the application, please send your enhancements to me and I may add them to my master copy.  I would also appreciate any feedback.

I would post this in the comments of the OnMilwaukee.com article I'm responding to, "Area around Fonz calls out for a restaurant", but the site requires users to register to add comments, and the last thing I need is another username and password to not remember.

So, the writer (Jeff Sherman) is upset because the statue was placed in a location with nothing much around it.  His solution -- throw up a Happy Days-style diner next to it!  Why not, the statue is already there, and it's not like restaurants are risky ventures or anything.

My question is -- if Happy Days was supposed to have been inspired by Milwaukee, why wasn't there already an existing Happy Days-style restaurant for them to put the Bronze Fonz next to, rather than the random location they ended up putting it?  Of course, there is a Happy Days-style restaurant in Milwaukee, which coincidentally partially inspired Arnold's Drive-In in Happy Days -- Leon's Custard .  Of course, that diner isn't located downtown, it's on the south side of Milwaukee.  So why didn't they put the Bronze Fonz there instead of downtown?  Wouldn't that have made a lot more sense?  (The other inspiration for Arnold's, The Milky Way Drive-In, is long gone, but that was located in Glendale -- also not downtown).

What does Happy Days have to do with downtown Milwaukee?  If they were intent on putting up the statue downtown, why didn't they make a bronze Laverne & Shirley?

With every development to this Bronze Fonz story, I get angrier and angrier.