Strafe! Strafe!

Hehehehehe, gotta love the Japanese:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a88_1182467920

That is all.

Mish Mash, I was taking a bath / 'Long about a Saturday Night.

As hinted by the title (sorry about that), this post is going to be a mish mash of topics.

Saturday night. The team performed at a wedding on Saturday night. An East Indian wedding. What? Yeah, swing isn't really the first thing you think of when you hear 'East Indian wedding'. It was fun, though. It was also fun doing a tantrum (aerial) to It's All Right With Me (lyrics...) at a wedding... Exactly.

Last night I was randomly surfing around and came across a site called Geekologie. Its About reads: "Geekologie is [a] website dedicated to the scientific study of gadgets, gizmos, and awesome." I wouldn't say 'scientific' or 'study' even, and a lot of the author's comments are rather asinine, but there are some pretty cool items featured... such as the Abduction Lamp. Another favourite is the full size Camarasaurus dinosaur replica. This thing is six metres high and seventeen metres long. And somebody added the absolute best comment ever:

So I'm the only one here that wants it outside my work so at 5:30pm I can jump out the window and slide down it's [sic] neck to my car whilst screaming "Yabba Dabba DOO!!"?

July 4. Forget American Independence Day; I don't care about that. July 4 is when the Transformers movie comes out! As with any movie release with this much history, childhood memories, and merchandising, there are a bunch of toys I want. Hehe. I so want this Optimus Prime voice changing helmet! Just imagine going to the theatre wearing this... along with all the others doing the same! And of course the Mr. Potato Head Optimash Prime. These are just cool: transforming Softimus Prime and Slumblebee plush figures. And for some classic chess... Transformers chess set.

That is all.

Alumni facts?

You would think the Alumni Association for the University of Victoria would have a proper fact checker... or at least someone with enough time on their hands to do the work. Apparently not. As I said in my last post, Holly's Convocation was a couple weeks ago. During Convocation, you get an alumni pin from the Alumni Association. Looking at Holly's and then mine and then Holly's again over the course of a day or two, I noticed a few differences. When I got them together, they were completely different, as you can see in the pictures below. The pins are quite different, but have the common elements of the book/tome/whatever representing knowledge (I assume) and the three martlets. The text on the card stock that the pins come attached to are also fairly different. My card has the official motto in both English and Latin, whereas Holly's only has it in English. What's most interesting, though, is the discrepancy of the facts.


Mine reads:

A gift for you...

It is with pleasure and congratulations that the University of Victoria Alumni Association welcomes you as a member. We hope you will wear this pin with pride as a token of the dedication and discipline with which you earned your educational distinction. We trust that this pin will serve as a reminder that you are one of an accomplished group of individuals.

The Alumni Association is a volunteer-based, non-profit society which works in partnership with the department of Alumni Affairs at the University of Victoria to encourage a life long relationship between alumni and their university. The back of this card outlines the ways you can stay connected to your graduating class and UVic.

Multitudo Sapientium Sanitas Orbis
(A multitude of the wise is the health of the world)

The three martlets on the crest are symbolic of the 1903 to 1915 Victoria College affiliation with McGill University, while the blue and gold colours represent the UBC affiliation from 1920 to 1963. The University of Victoria formally came into being on July 1, 1963. The Alumni Assocation was incorporated as a society in 1965.

Holly's reads:

A gift for you...

The University of Victoria Alumni Association welcomes you as a member. We hope you will wear this pin with pride since it represents the dedication and discipline you gave your studies at UVic.

The UVic Alumni Association is a volunteer-based, non-profit society working in partnership with the department of Alumni Services at the University of Victoria to encourage active relationships between alumni and their university. You automatically become a member of the association upon graduation. There are no membership fees.

About your new pin...

Your alumni pin features a simplified version of the university's official coat of arms. The three martlets on the crest are symbolic of the 1903 to 1915 Victoria College affiliation with McGill University, while the blue and gold colours represent our affiliation with UBC from 1920 to 1963.

The formal coat of arms also includes a torch (from which the alumni magazine takes its name) and the official mottos: "Let there be light" and "A multitude of the wise is the health of the world."

The University of Victoria was established on July 1, 1963. The Alumni Association was incorporated as a society in 1964.

Re-read the red bolded sentences. Interesting, no? So was it 1964 or 1965?


Holly's is on the left, mine is on the right.

That is all.

Convocation Carnival

A couple weeks ago was Holly's Convocation. After toiling away at studies for years, and paying thousands and thousands of dollars for that privilege, she got the pleasure of experiencing the hallowed traditions that are Convocation. Let me describe Convocation to you:


The experience of friends and family
You pile into the University Centre Auditorium with all the other friends and families, at which point you wait... and wait. When the ceremonies begin, you stand while all the unprocessed graduates form a Procession that file into the seats around the stage. Then people talk. And more people talk. And more people talk. When all the talking is done, the unprocessed graduates go through the age-old traditions until all have passed into the World of Academia. After this, there's yet more talking. At the end, the newly anointed graduates file out as you once again stand.


The experience of the vict... Convocatee
You arrive at the University long before your family to pick up your silly looking regalia that's steeped in time-honoured tradition. After getting the regalia, you proceed to find your staging room where you are helped into said regalia. Time to wait. And wait. And wait. Once you're tired of waiting, you're then directed into lines and given orders of either "you go when I tell you to go" or "follow that guy" or "follow the person in front of you". Now that you're in your lines, you then wait (and wait and wait and wait) for your cue (queue? ). Once you've gotten your cue, you make your way into the auditorium and to your seat, where everybody can see your every movement. And now the speeches. Traditions always call for lots of talking and Academia has some of the oldest traditions, so there's always lots of talking.

After all the talking, you're filed onto the stage one-by-one to have your name called out to the masses (the audience) and what program/degree got you to this point. When your name is called, you first pose for pictures, then walk across the stage to where the Chancellor is sitting, who bonks you upside the head with a funny looking hat to welcome you to Academia. You then walk off the stage where you collect your multi-thousand dollar piece of dogwood (degree) and the alumni people give you a pin and other stuff. By taking the pin and other stuff from the alumni people, they implicitly take permission to ask you for money for the rest of your life.

Once all the unprocessed graduates have been processed, you then sit through more talking before filing out to a standing audience. Now it's time to find your friends and family in the sea of hundreds of other friends and family. After collecting your people, you then proceed to the free food and then pose for hundreds and hundreds of pictures, so you can forever be captured in your silly looking regalia... which you have to return before X time or you'll pay late fees. And it better be clean or you'll be paying cleaning fees.


A note about the silly looking regalia. Everybody in Academia wears silly looking regalia for these types of things. The higher (or deeper, depending on how you look at it) you go, the sillier it looks.

That is all.

Styrofoam!!!

Ok, so it took awhile for an update. Total time I've spent on the cup since last posting has been about five minutes. Total time Holly's spent on the cup has been an hour or two. The cup might not be inside-out yet, but I've got pictures of progress... taken soon after posting last time.



That is all.

Madness on the Inside (Out)

Saturday, I was in two shows with the team, performing our latest routine to Ella Fitzgerald's It's All Right With Me. The shows were the two halves of the Victoria Dance Connection's Year End Performance at the Royal Theatre. At the end of the second show, we were hanging out backstage getting ready to leave when Geoff told us a little story involving a styrofoam cup. I was drinking some water from one such cup at the moment. Apparently, his friend's dad used to turn styrofoam cups inside out during his college days. It seems it's possible to flatten the styrofoam enough to give it the flexibility to turn the whole cup inside out without breaking. It just requires a lot of patience and boredom... and possibly some insanity, as I found out.

Now, if you tell me a story like that, it's quite possible I'm going to take that as a personal challenge. So, having finished my water, I started in on the cup, flattening the top and slowly working my way down. Geoff had already started on his, but would later give up when he got a little impatient and broke his by rushing. When we were all ready to go, we headed out to celebrate and hang out. Personal challenge and all, I had my cup in hand. And so was the case for the rest of the night. When I said it required a lot of patience, I wasn't kidding. It's slow going, flattening styrofoam cups. After flattening on and off for a couple hours last night, I was only about one third of the way into the cup. A little more work today and I'm a little over half done, though it does go faster the lower you get since the diameter decreases. The cup is starting to get pretty flexible and I've started widening the top in preparation for inside-out-ing it.

I have to say, it's pretty tough on the thumbs. They're starting to feel like I've been playing with Lego for a long time. I can see I still have a lot of flattening and working the cup to increase its flexibility still, but I'm not going to give up. I'll report again soon.

That is all.