The Good of Hurricane Sandy

The hurricane - named oddly after my best friend - Hurricane Sandy proved more devastating than I had expected. The horrifying images of blocks burning and white-water roads was simply shocking.

With that, my prayers go out to all those affected by this natural disaster.

But on a lighter note...

Among all the horrifying footage of transformers exploding transformers and such, I found this gem. Sharing has been disabled in this video, but it's a simply a car slide-turn through an intersection behind a random reporter.

I don't know why I find this so amusing, but it's like an action movie just interrupted this mundane news report! I've always wondered what it's like for extras in action movies when really random action movie things happen.

Another positive out of this disastrous negative was the episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Monday. Fact: Laugh tracks and studio audiences have been a production technique for years because we laugh more when others laugh; laughter is contagious that way. But it takes a truly funny show to get laughs without it.

The Late Night audience was sent home to safety from the hurricane. However, the show still went on, and it was good. Yes, it started awkward. (The monologue really needed laughs from more than the crew...) But once the guests came on, it was just like any other night. I laughed just as much as always.

Actually, I laughed more because the monologue was really awkward.

Hats off to Jimmy for living up to the phrase: "The show must go on." It was really inspiring.

Lastly, I put "Hurricane Sandy" into YouTube and got this video:

Somehow a multiple-block fire started in New York City due to the hurricane. 

At first, I was freaked out. While I was at home watching the latest episode of Revenge, people were losing their lives and their loved ones. Sometimes we get so involved in our own lives that we become unconscious of the world around us.

However, while I watched this video, it occurred to me: I've never seen a fire rage like this before. It's important to me to see the beauty in everything - even really, really bad things - and I must admit this was one magnificent fire.

Think about how everything that looked so different before looks the same as it burns away. Think about how it was all caused by a series of unfortunate events that no human was involved in. Amazing.

As previously stated, I try to find the beauty in everything. Hurricane Sandy has been one tragedy after another with effects reaching far into The United States from the east coast. However, there are always tiny moments like these that can make you smile...if only for a moment.

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to Dance in the Rain."

A Very Geeky Halloween | Decorations

I was on Pinterest one day and I came across the Bloody Bath Mat - a white bath mat that turns red when wet making "bloody" footprints - and I loved it!

There seems to be a whole set. Super cool.

This would be great for a Halloween party. (Even better as a year-round prank.) More importantly, it got me thinking about Halloween decorations!!!

Whether you get creative with a pumpkin or two...

or go completely overboard...

You can't possibly hope to have the coolest house on the block without super snazzy Halloween decorations!!!

A Very Geeky Halloween | Costumes

If you think about it, in many ways, geeks are just big kids. And what holiday do kids love more than Halloween?! (Christmas, yes, but just go with it.)

Whether you're in kindergarten or college, Halloween is all about costumes. The candy, bobbing for apples, and jack-o-lanterns may pass away, but Halloween would simply be another day if it weren't for costumes.

But even as a "big kid", you can't leave the house like this:

You're a geek! The embodiment of information overload! You're not connected to the matrix; you are the matrix! You can do better than Superman or Nameless Monster mask.

Try these:

Cosplay

Cosplay - done well - is my favorite kind of Halloween costume! The term is usually linked to anime (an interesting medium for this purpose anyway), but the concept is simple: Take a character you know and love and become them. 

Well done, Vash the Stampede.

Do you and your friends have a favorite character you'd love to be for a night? 

(Hilarious) Public Figures
Fun fact: Halloween costumes are a good indication of who will win presidential elections. For example, in 2008, more Barack Obamas than John McCains roamed the streets trick-or-treating and Halloween partying, and Barack Obama was elected president the following month.

Interesting public figures are great costumes because any crappy frat party is just a little better when Barack Obama and Ke$ha are grinding on the dance floor. As awesome as it would be to see the real   thing, Halloween costumes are usually the best we can hope for when it comes those outrageous scandals.

Among the good this year:

• Psy, singer of Gangnum Style (but be prepared to do the dance all night)
• Mitt Romney
• Donald Trump
• Zombie (classic, trendy, and an allusion to The Walking Dead)
• Giant Chick-Fil-A Chicken (a potentially hilarious political statement)
• Katniss (of The Hunger Games)

Inside Jokes

If you are going to an familiar setting, such as a group of friends hanging out or an office party, you can make everyone laugh with an inside joke costume. Dress up as someone you know or something significant to everyone in attendance.

Obviously, you shouldn't do an inside joke costume if you plan to be with people from the outside. After you've explained your costume for the 10,000th time, you will understand the importance of context.

These are a few of my geek-inspired Halloween costume ideas (for the last minute costume hunters)!

What are you gonna be for Halloween???

Take Me to The Future?

Time.

A comforting constant in an ever-changing world. The human life cannot last forever (yet), and, because of that, we sometimes fear the passage of time. However, when it's an hour before your shift ends, you want nothing more but for time to speed up.

I bring up the topic of time because apparently we can time travel now! I was bored online one day and wondered: Have we reached "the future" yet? How would I know? Can we travel through time?!

So I turned to Google, and lo and behold: It's a scientific consensus that, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, time travel is possible. There is a catch, though. You can only go into the future.

It's kind of like in the Adam Sandler movie, Click, where the main character fasts forward in time through some dull points of life. Imagine getting into a machine, then returning home several years in the future...

I knew I should have voted before I leaped.

Personally, I think it would be more interesting to travel backward through time. Scientists aren't saying its impossible to travel back in time, but there are other concerns:

• If you go back in time and murder your father before you are born, then won't you cease to exist?
• (My own question) If it is someday possible for someone to travel back in time, wouldn't we have met someone from the future already?

But think of what you could do with backward time travel! You could meet your parents when they were still considered cool. You could witness historical events up close. You could just chill in your favorite decade...

Wouldn't it be nice to have all this back?

Unfortunately, we are merely fathoming the possibility of moving forward in time right now. I'm not entirely sure how useful that would be...

I guess someone with an incurable disease could fast-forward to a time where a cure has been discovered. (Goodbye, Polio.)

What would you do if you could travel into the future?

The Joys of Destroying Expensive Stuff

If I may grab my soapbox for a moment, I recently noticed something interesting...

By now, we're all familiar with Will It Blend?, a horrifyingly funny blender ad campaign that turns expensive electronics - among other things - into smoothies.

If you followed the above link, you witnessed an iPhone 4 being blended shortly after its United States debut. That means, this guy spent a couple hundred dollars on a remarkable piece of technology only to utterly destroy it! Seriously. Some people still have flip phones, and this guy just blended an iPhone 4!

Yet, are we outraged? No. In fact, we are thoroughly entertained. We cheer the MacHeads' (then) most coveted item. Why???

The question came to mind when I saw this on Gizmodo:

Someone - I can only presume a super villain - Superglued the (alleged) first iPhone 5 in the Netherlands to the ground in a busy town square! Take that capitalism?

Poor passersby attempt to take and claim the latest Apple holy grail, but with no success. It's cruel and unusual punishment to both the townspeople and the iPhone. But are we entertained? Absolutely!

(Side-note: I love the obviously drunk guy who, even in his inebriated state knows he should try to grab this phone. lol)

My theory for why we enjoy watching these expensive pieces of technology be abused starts with this guy:

Oh, I see you have a cellular device of some sort. I have one, too. Have you heard of... The iPhone 5?

We all know this guy. We all hate this guy. He's why sites like Gizmodo have to write articles like Don't Be a Jerk With Your Cool New iPhone 5. It's not this guy in particular that makes you want to blend a Samsung Galaxy Tab. It's what he represents...

It's a status thing. That Guy thinks he's better than you because he has the most up-to-date piece of equipment out there, and he wants everyone to know it. But when that item has been hit with a metal bat... it kind of falls off its pedestal.

Destroying technology sets us all on a level playing field. It reminds us that whether you take notes on an iPad, a laptop, or a spiral notebook, we are all equally human because these things that make us feel greater than (or less than) can so easily be taken away.

Or maybe we are all just really sick and enjoy throw hundreds of dollars down the drain...

What do you think???