Trying two new things this morning: grilling a turkey, and live-blogging on SV-POW!

I like to grill. Steak, chicken, kebabs, yams, pineapple, bananas–as long as it’s an edible solid, I’m up for it. But I’ve never grilled a turkey before. Neighbor, colleague, fellow paleontologist and grillmeister Brian Kraatz sent me his recipe, which is also posted on Facebook for the edification of the masses. See Brian’s excellent writeup for the whole process, I’m just going to hit the photogenic parts here. Oh, and usually I tweak any photos I post within an inch of their lives, but I don’t have time for that this morning, so you’re getting as close to a live, unedited feed as I can manage. Stay tuned for updates.

Enough of that. Let’s rock!

The process starts  more than a day in advance, with the brine. Salt water, fruit, onions, garlic, spices, and some apple juice.

The turkey needs to be entirely immersed in the brine for at least 24 hours. Doing this in a solid container would require an extra big container and too much  liquid to cover the bird. I follow Brian’s method of brining in a triple-layer of trash bags. You can see a turkey roaster peeking out underneath the trash bags. Helps with the carrying.

Put the turkey in the trash bags first, then pour in the brine. Unless you like huge messes.

The genius of the trash bag method on display. You can squeeze out all the air so that the volume of the bag is equal to just the turkey and the brine.

Into the fridge for a day.

First thing this morning: out come the giblets, and save the goodies from the brine. We’ll get back to the neck later.

The bird awaits.

Crucial step: putting in a drip pan. Keeps the coals off to the side for indirect heat, and catches the grease so you don’t burn down the neighborhood.

Putting in the herb butter. I used three short sticks of butter mixed with sage, lemon pepper, and Mrs. Dash. Working the skin away from the meat and then filling the space with butter was extremely nasty. This must be what diverticula feel like.

A chimney is helpful to get the coals going.

To eat is human; to grill is divine.

Smoke bombs: mesquite chips soaked in water, wrapped up in balls of tinfoil, with holes poked on top to let the smoke out.

Fruit and spices into the body cavity.

At this point, I was fairly certain that today would be the greatest day of my life. The turkey is centered over the drip pan, stuffed with goodness, subcutaneously loaded with herb butter, draped with bacon. You can see one of the smoke bombs sitting right on top of the coals.

Know what you’re getting into. This 15 lb bird just barely cleared the lid of my grill.

A little over an hour in. I installed foil heat shields to keep the wings and thighs from cooking too fast. It’s all about the indirect heat. Some of the bacon comes off now, as a mid-morning treat.

Okay, the bird is about halfway done, and I have to whip up some sustainer coals and another batch of smoke bombs. Further updates as and when. Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE

I was hoping to get some more pictures posted before we ate, but you know how it is in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day (or, if you’re not an American, maybe you don’t know, so I’ll tell you: dogs and cats living together, we’re talking total chaos).

The turkey just before I pulled it off the grill. The heat shields turned out to be clutch, I would have completely destroyed the limbs without them. That’s going to be SOP from now on.

Ah yes, the bird, she turned out even more succulent than I hadda expected. Check out the pink shade of the meat just below the skin. I recognize that, from good barbeque, but I’ve never produced it before.

That’s it for the cooking part of today’s program. As for the ultimate fate of the bird…we ate a stupifying amount of it. I sent even more home with our guests. And the other half–yes, half–of this thunder beast is sitting in the fridge. Hello-o leftovers!

And hello-o science!

I was going to post some more pictures of the neck, but I didn’t get around to eating it, so…another time, perhaps. In lieu, here’s Mike’s turkey vertebra in left lateral view (see the original in all its supersized glory here). Note the pneumatic foramen in the lateral wall of the centrum, just behind the cervical rib loop. This is actually kind of a lucky catch; a lot of times with chickens and turkeys, the pneumatic foramina are so far up in the cervical rib loop that they can’t be seen in lateral view.

It used to freak me out a little bit that birds often don’t have their pneumatic foramina in the middle of the lateral wall of the centrum, like sauropods. But a possible explanation occurred to me just this morning as I was planning this post. I think that birds have their pneumatic foramina right where you’d expect them, based on sauropods. I’ll explain why.

The first part of the explanation is that instead of wearing their pneumatic cavities on the outside, like this Giraffatitan cervical, bird vertebrae tend to be inflated from within, with just a few tiny foramina outside. The second part is that birds have HUGE cervical rib loops compared to sauropods. If the sauropod vert shown above had its rib on, the resulting loop would be fairly dainty, the osteological equivalent of a bracelet. The cervical rib loops of birds are more like tubes, they’re so antero-posteriorly elongated.

So take the brachiosaur cervical shown above and shrink all of the external pneumatic spaces by several inches. The cavities on the arch and spine would close up entirely, and the complex of fossae and foramina on the lateral side of the centrum would be reduced to a small hole right behind the cervical rib. Then stretch out the cervical rib loop in the fore-aft direction and voila, you’d have something like a turkey cervical, with a little tiny pneumatic foramen tucked up inside the cervical rib loop.

This doesn’t explain why bird verts are inflated from within instead of being eroded from without, or why sauropods had such dinky cervical rib loops (mechanical what, now?), or why pneumatic diverticula tend to make the biggest holes in the front half of the centrum, adjacent to the cervical ribs. I just think that maybe bird and sauropod pneumaticity are not as different as they  appear at first glance. Your thoughts are welcome.

For those who can’t make it to the PRSSA meeting tonight to hear Mr. Kevin Bishop speak about his role as Communication Director for Senator Lindsey Graham – follow the meeting via the stream of live blog coverage here.

Live-blogging is a fascinating concept. You sit down at a computer, and you blog about an activity as it happens. I’ve toyed with the idea of live-blogging. There are some events that I would live-blog the crap out of. There are the hilarious events that I would live-blog the crap out of, like hot yoga, or post-hernia surgery constipation. There are other serious events that I would love to live-blog the crap out of in a more philosophical way, like a surf session in big waves at Ocean Beach, or a barefoot run at night wearing a headlamp.

However, the truth is, that by calling live-blogging a fascinating concept, I really mean that it is pretty dumb. Live-blogging is a running commentary on a specific event…and as a historian, I say you always go for the primary source (the event itself) over a running commentary. Live-blogging tends to be thoughtful in sporadic bursts, but is otherwise relatively lame and lacking insight. Why? Because the event hasn’t been fully completed, it’s still going on, and so the author has not yet taken the time to think through all of the various elements to synthesize. And live-tweeting…don’t get me started. As soon as someone goes to a conference and starts live-tweeting it, I temporarily (sometimes permanently) unfollow while wishing that the person hates the conference.

So to prove my point, I have live-blogged my evening on the couch. Because let’s be honest, in order to live-blog, you need to be sitting somewhere with your laptop up and running for a long period of time (see these “cool guys” above)….usually in the audience of some speaker, or else on your couch watching a TV broadcast that apparently is so important that you need to live-blog it. (In fact, I got this idea after seeing someone update on twitter various live-blogs that were live-blogging the Oprah/Sarah Palin interview. How fascinating! And by fascinating, I once again mean pretty dumb.)

Now of course, my live-blog is the exception to the rule. It’s fascinating, and you know what I actually mean. So delve in and enjoy my night with me as I live-blog the crap out of my night on the couch.

5:35pm arrive on couch with Chinese food. Devour it. My fortune: “Don’t be discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”
5:55pm Augustus is waking up and wants to play. He seems to be inclined to chew his nasty rope on our couch and cover it with his slobber.
6pm Feed the fat bastard. (Augustus.) (The other fat bastard just ate Chinese food.)
6:09pm I’m off to pick up my wife from yoga. It was raining so I drove her, rather than have her take the scooter. I’ve also decided that I need to start running commentary of my thoughts more, and not just my actions. I’m looking forward to tonight: The Office mini-marathon on TBS, just like every Tuesday.
6:58pm Back on the couch, and Jeopardy! is just about to start. The middle contestant is hilarious, Rob with a green jacket on. I love this show, mostly because I typically tear it up.
7:03pm Green jacket Rob listed his job as a custodial supervisor. I’m starting to launch a theory that he is in character…the glasses, moustache, and suit just all seem too perfectly goofy, and so a character may be a fresh new way to be on Jeopardy! I should also add that I’m working on a bad-ass idea for Daraja whil watching Jeopardy! (God I love ending a sentence with Jeopardy! so that I can excessively use exclamation marks!!!)
7:20pm Green jacket Rob seems to be down and out. He is in third going into final Jeopardy! and has less than half the cash that the leader has. It looks like we won’t get to learn more about Rob in future rounds of Jeopardy!
7:53pm I have gotten immersed in Mashable’s HOW TO: Set up a Facebook Fan Page, which I’m working on for Daraja. I think there is good potential to actually make our fan page more functional, and also to spend this time on the couch a bit productively tonight by doing just that.
8pm It’s go-time for the TBS Office Mini-Marathon. Hell to the yeah.
8:02pm My wife moved onto the couch next to me. Augustus, who had been sleeping on the other couch, in his incredibly adorable way, jumped down from his empty couch, slowly sauntered across the room, and then jumped up into my wife’s lap. He is in a cuddly move, and we both love it.
8:09pm I love “The Office.” I’ll be honest: I at first kind of semi-boycotted the American Office. I had religiously watched the British Office on DVD, and when I heard that the American Office was coming out, I was not that thrilled…especially when the first few episodes were more or less exact replicas of the British Office. However, I have lately changed my views. In thinking about this quite a bit–the British Office truly was incredible, but the show was almost exclusively about David Brent, the boss character. Yes, there was the love between Tim and Dawn, and Gareth Keenan was pretty hilarious, but the supporting roles were very much supporting roles. I don’t think we ever learned the names of more than half toe employees of Wernan Hogg, or whatever the company was named. Meanwhile, David Brent was a caricature. Hilarious, but a bit one-dimensional. In the American Office a) all the employees get their part, and have pretty complex characters, and as a result b) you love and hate all of them. Of course I love Pam and Jim the most, I mean who doesn’t, but Michael Scott is likeable just as much as he is despicable, and so on and so forth. And so in conclusion: I actually think that after giving this much thought, I like the American Office more than the British Office.
8:17pm There’s the TV commercial with Payton Manning and Justin Timberlake sitting on the panel of experts who approve the TV. First off: who gives a crap if they approve it? Second: who is the third panelist? I keep waiting for a new commercial to come out that reveals the identity to be a different celebrity.
8:56pm 2 episodes down: Jim and Pam are re-united after her time in NYC, I’ve added youtube videos and our blog to the Daraja fan page, and Augustus is snoring quite enthusiastically.
8:58pm I just made a huge mistake by going to vimeo.com’s support page. They have pictures of their Help Center employees, and now I want to vomit directly onto the faces of Dalas Verdugo and Andreas Allen.
9:01pm Why does Michael Scott hate Toby so much?
9:14pm Dwight is fricking hilarious. Too bad Rainn Wilson on Twitter is actually not that funny at all, and is in fact more annoying than funny.
9:25pm Once again, I love Jim and Pam.
9:26pm My wife is totally asleep. I am not sure how long she has been asleep, but she’s totally out.
9:31pm I’m going back and bolding all of the times from this entry. After that, I will switch to HTML view and get rid of the spaces between entries.
9:39pm I just noticed that my wife is snoozing with her face resting on her left hand, and my dog is snoozing resting his face on his left paw. HOW. CUTE. IS. THAT.
10:02pm I just wrote the introduction to this blog entry, and I’m starting to fade. Starting the fifth episode of The Office, holy crap my Tuesday nights are exciting. I also just remembered that Twitter shuts down in an hour, so I want to wrap this up before then so I can post this up there.

How much of a nerd am I becoming???

You’ve seen the experts do it, Paul Fletcher, Caroline Cheese et al. Well now i’ll be giving it a shot.

This weekend i’ll be blogging live for the first time, between 2PM and 5PM. Hopefully some of you will tune in and we can get some topics debated while the action is running.

I’ll be focusing mainly on the Premier League games but will be giving some mention to other important games.

I’ll also hopefully have abit of software up and running that lets everyone join in and discuss with me.

Be there or be square. Don’t let me spend my Saturday afternoon talking to myself!

After mulling around the coffee and muffins in the reception area and feeling awkward because I didn’t know anyone at the conference, I headed into the lecture hall where I eyeballed the walls for electrical outlets.  I would need a power source if I was going to type through several hours of conference proceedings.  I saw another attendee settling in and plugging in her laptop, so I sat down nearby and asked if she would mind sharing the outlet (she didn’t).

So began my day of twittering the “Nowcasting: Design Theory & Digital Humanities” conference held at UCLA last month. My first volley of the day:

@janaremy audience is assembling & positioning themselves around available power outlets (my kind of conference!) #nowcasting

After a few initial tweets I realized, through hashtag searching, that there were several other twitterers in the room.  By following the other tagged tweets I discovered a website that was liveblogging the conference happenings, too.  Within an hour, I found about a dozen people in the audience actively writing about the conference events as they unfolded.  We were not only twittering our impressions, but we were in a dynamic conversation about issues raised by the talks.  One person with a digital camera was taking occasional pictures of the presentations & posting the links.  Another was sending links to the various speakers’ publications.  As the conversations evolved they added more depth to the conference presentations than I gleaned from the talks themselves.  In turn, I was getting to know the various personalities chattering about the conference, and by the end of the day after learning the “in-real-life” identities of my fellow twitters, we chatted at the closing reception and have since then become better acquainted via continued interactions on Twitter and Facebook.

Not every conference that I’ve attempted to liveblog or twitter has gone so smoothly.   For example, my intention to post updates on the 2009 American Historical Association conference was thwarted by the high cost of wireless access at the venue (what history grad student can afford a $129 hotel room plus a $15 daily internet access fee?).  A few months after that, when I tweeted the happenings at another history conference, I couldn’t find anyone else who was also doing so (hashtag searches weren’t helpful this time), which made it feel like I was simply having a conversation with myself rather than creating community with fellow attendees.  For example, in one panel about digital humanities my sense of alienation was evident as I sat in a nearly-empty room in what, in my opinion, should have been the session generating the biggest buzz:

@janaremy Only 4 women in audience of Digital Humanities panel. Why? #WHA

@janaremy Wondering why they didn’t find a commenter who knows more about Digital Humanities than just Powerpoint & online syllabi (sigh) #WHA

The positive outcome from tweeting that conference came later, when my twitter feed funneled into my Facebook page status updates.  Colleagues who weren’t at the conference  responded to my tweets, creating an opportunity for follow-up discussion about the digital tools that are useful for scholars.   Later, I also reflected on my experience with a blog posting about the panel.

My latest experiment with using twitter is in my role as the “Online Media Chairperson” for an upcoming Digital Humanities conference at Yale.  Recently I created a twitter account dedicated solely to discussion of the conference, and started tying that presence to other digital humanists on twitter through “following” them, especially those users included in Dan Cohen’s comprehensive Digital Humanities twitter list. Within 30 minutes of my launching the account Dan tweeted an announcement about our event and numerous users began following @PDP2010 or “re-tweeting” Dan’s message. I don’t exactly know yet how the twitter account will augment attendance or ongoing discussion for this conference, but I’m excited to be experimenting with this technology and to see how it might create possibilities for scholarly collaboration that begin before the two-day event and carry on for long afterward.

I’m curious, do any of you have experiences with liveblogging at conferences or advertising academic events via twitter?  Or do you have any advice to offer on how to use social media for academic networking and collaboration?

A quick run-down of yesterday’s events before running out the door to the first session:

The day began with a very pleasant train ride from Boston to Philly–kind of strange to pass through the center of Manhattan without even seeing it.  A quick cab ride to the conference hotel and we’re off.

I always find that Thursday afternoon at AMS is a  nice “calm before the storm.”  So, I took the opportunity to sit in the lobby, catch up with old friends and colleagues, and book up my lunches and dinners for the remainder of the weekend.

As a result, I only made it to two papers: Dave Paul and John Z. McKay.  Both were well delvired and received presentations (more on particular aspects of individual papers in a later post).

The best part of the day was definately the Amusicology reception.  Thanks to all who came by!  It was really great to see everyone, especially the bloggers: 2′23″, Zeitschichten,  ThoughtLights, and one new one whose name escapes me in the pre-coffee phase of my day…I’ll add it when I remember it!  We’ll do it again next year for sure.

See you round the conference!

As I sit in the country’s first LEED-certified Airport terminal, (with free WiFi by our benevolent sponsor, Google), I though I would give a quick rundown of some events that come highly recommended at the Philadelphia Conference:

1. The Amusicology Party! (in case you haven’t heard already)

2. The McClary/Del Tredici Interview Friday Night, part of the LGBTQ Study Group. If you really like it, I think that J & J Lubrano is brokering the sale of Del Tredici’s manuscripts, for the truly enterprising collector.

3.  Sundry Harvard grad students presenting papers: Evan MacCarthy, Ali Monchick, John McKay. Sorry if I’m forgetting anyone.

4. Seda’s Concert! See previous post.

5. Finally, Phil Gentry has an excellent post that gives a not-for-tourists flyover of logistics at the conference.

Safe Travels! Your faithful correspondents will be back once they are on the ground in the city of brotherly love.

18:45
Ladies and gents, girls and boizzzzzz, WE ARE AT BURBERRY NOW NOW NOW!

We’ll be updating our night here. Feel free to post your comments, tell us what you wanna see!

We’ll reply at the speed of lightning!

For now, we’re still taking in the immensity of the super large LCD screens, the Spring Summer 2009 dresses, fresh eucalyptus, nom nom nom.

A little but about Buberry at ION Orchard. It’s the largest store in South East Asia and today is their official opening. Creative Director Christian Bailey is gracing the event and loadsss of celebs will be here laterr.

EXCITED!

On Sarah, Circle multi-wear blouse, from Not for the Shallow by Desmond Yang. Ruched pants from Abyzz by Desmond Yang. Suede waist belt, from Alaia.

On Jo, Sequinned top, from Topshop. Drop-crotch pants, from Zara. Platform heels, from Charles & Keith. Wrist candy, from Topshop.

We will be updating live from the Mac stations the lovely people at Burberry have provided, throughout the night.

Ok. Stay tuned!

19:30
SPOTTED! Jacelyn Tay

19:48

Guess who we just met?!

Also, X-wen is talking to Tan Kheng Hua and her daughter as we speak/type!

20:15

Oops! Sorry for the lag, but we had to take time off to take photos with some male models with photobooth

20:21 Chirstopher Bailey is in the building! and Dinie is in HEAVEN! hahas

20:23And Jo might pass out from excitement!

20:32

More celebs in Burberry. Here’s the super tall, leggy, and gorgeous Liu Wen, and Celeste Chong.

21:04

Omg time is passing too fast!

Photo opp with Zoe Tay

Camwhoring while waiting for Christopher Bailey.

Christopher Bailey leaving the Burberry VIP lounge.

OMGOMGOMGOMG! excited!

GUESS WHO ARE THE BEST BLOGGERS?!

he wrote about the same thing for everyone. but who cares?! (:

Some stations got overtaken by guests… but its all good!

Guests photobooth-ing.

21:56

Jo’s feet are hurting. a lot. (But the ARE lovely shoes).

That’s it for our night at Burberry. We worked hard and played hard, and we’ll bring you a more coherent post after we recover from all the excitement!

Drew and Ryan are happy to announce that they will be holding the first ever Amusicology No-Host Reception at the Ritz-Carlton from 8pm-10pm on Thursday, November 12, as a kick-off to the 75th American Musicological Society annual meeting in Philadelphia. Bloggers, aspiring bloggers, readers, aspiring readers, and anyone else who wants to bathe in the musicological glow should stop by.

Google Map directions from the conference hotel:

View Larger Map

ps. Lest you think that Drew & Ryan have suddenly come into some bailout money, no-host means that you pay for your own drinks. But we are looking in to having some souvenirs…

UPDATE: Ryan & Drew have ordered a limited number of fabulous amusicology buttons! The first 30 or so guests will get their very own piece of the blogosphere. Don’t be late.

Oh Old Who and your cheesy costumes and scenery. How you do entertain me. I probably should have checked who the companions were or what the plot was, but this episode was available for instant watching, so here I am.

Hmmm…the ship looks a lot like something I saw on Star Trek once. And wow, these extras have no enthusiasm whatsoever.

Ah, Romana I. With an oddly interesting outfit and bickering with the Doctor. The fact that he doesn’t even seem to know where the parts on his ship are makes me that might be the reason he can never land normally.

“She is prettier than you master.” K-9? You win at life.

Watching Old Who makes me realize just how much Rose did not rock as a companion. I loved Romana II and Leela, and Romana I is quickly gaining her own as an awesome companion.

The Captain has not read the Overlord list. You don’t kill some random guy, you kill the guy who screwed up. bad for crew morale. And who’s the random chick near him now?

I am way amused that the sonic screwdriver doesn’t work but a hair clip does.

Oh hey, Earth is about to get destroyed again. How many little kids understood that Tera in the Sol solar system is Earth?

Oh yeah, I totally called the girl being more than she seems. Would have bee nice if the actress was less wooden. I am still in love with Romana’s outfit. Even if it is pink.

And the guards fall over before the rocks even hit them. Good to know you can hire good security now.

Aw, how touching. The Captain actually feels sad that his geek died. I mean, he only spent three and a half episodes threatening him.

And The Doctor and Romana are now repeating Fantastic repeatedly. It’s quite hilarious.

Overall? A rather amusing episode with good dialog and almost non-existent plot.

Oooh, this is Douglas’s episode. It explains why I love the dialogue.

For all who couldn’t make it to our meeting tonight, catch up on what you missed by following our live blog coverage. Leslie Thornton – Public Information Director for Development here at Clemson University was our speaker for the night. She talked about her day-to-day activities at work and gave us some insight about starting out in the PR field.
See the post here:PRSSA Meeting 2- Leslie Thorton (Speaker)

Chris will be blogging live during this afternoon’s ALCS Game 3 in Anahiem.  Check in starting at 4pm for live updates throughout the game.

I know, it’s almost tomorrow anyway (11 p.m. at this writing). Hopefully there are still a few of you up and on your computers, instead of out on the town or sleeping for tomorrow’s Race for the Cure. Like I said, I’ve been sick!

But I did want to go ahead and give you a brief lowdown on tomorrow’s festivities. It really is going to be a foodie’s paradise.

First of all, it’s the season’s last hurrah for the Argenta Certified Arkansas Farmer’s Market. Come get the latest fall goodies while you can!

The most exciting part: Arkansas’ rockstar chefs from your favorite restaurants and catering companies, preparing their own specialties using locally grown produce and meats. Dishes will feature the fall harvest. Argenta Market, Starving Artist Cafe, Ashley’s Restaurant, Maddie’s Place and Ferneau Restaurant & Lounge are some of the participating vendors. The idea is you see what Arkansas farmers have to offer, then actually interact with chefs who know how to make it fabulous. How often do you get to do that?

They’ll also have live music, arts and crafts, and the Virginia Clinton Kelley Festival for the Cure, offering free health information.

So, you know it’s all about the plate of food you buy to eat. What will be cooking? How about these: Sweet Potato Tart, Beefalo Bratwurst, Sticky Toffee Pumpkin Pudding, Pork and Sharp Cheddar Quiche, Pumpkin Carrot & Lavender Soup, Arkansas Buffalo Chili, Tomato & Gorgonzola Soup, Winter Squash Soup (with Bacon Jalepeño Créme Fraîche) and Lindsey’s Fried Pies (Apple and Peach). Nom.

Bring four or five bucks for each plate. Not bad for a meal that would probably cost two or three times that, at least, in their restaurants.

Have I mentioned this is free? And so is the parking? And that food festivals just like this one are the rage all over the country, but usually have high-priced tickets?

More on this tomorrow. I will be at the event, with my own booth. I’ll be live-blogging as the day goes on, so check back for more info. And for heaven’s sake, get over there and say hello!

Deets:

Argenta Fall Foodie Festival

9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

6th and Main, North Little Rock

FREE admission and parking

I am currently sitting in Computer Science class. Such a riveting affair.

11:36: The professor (Who resembles Ronald Takaki) recieves a phone call. Class should have begun 6 minutes ago.

11:37: A student claims the average length of a polymer is 30. Another student claims 30.39. Mini Takaki continues to take answers.

11:40: After taking 10 more answers to the length of the hypothetical polymer, MT explains what probability is.

11:41: MT seems to think we’re on the right track. 11 minutes have passed and the lecture has not begun.

11:43: Any questions? A guy with a goatee has one about random integers. Am I in the right ballpark? Yes.

11:44: Time for multi dimensional probability. Facebook is checked.

11:45: What’s the answer? Fat kid with cocky voice thinks it’s zero. It IS zero!

11:46: Class is over in 44 minutes, 48 minutes left on my battery. This could be interesting.

11:47: Lecture begins. Philosophy behind C++ functions.

1148: Advantages of writing code as functions include that the code is modular! Who would have thought?!

11:50: Function writing includes addition!

11:53: Spaced out for 3 minutes. Desktop background is changed.

11:57: Arguments, variables, initialization. Photoshop is opened.

11:58: FKwCV says “No my question was, what’s the syntax for multiple arguments!!??”

12:02: Candy per person = total candy divided by number of people.

12:03: The way MT says “total candy” makes me giggle.

12:04: double candy_per_person;
candy_per_person = static_cast (total_candy) / total_people;

12:06: can you determine the value of d? double d = 11/2 (LOLLIN); d = 5.5 of course. In C++, ‘double’ refers to number of decimal places.

12:09: The function declaration is needed by the compiler. The compiler needs to know what kind of syntax you use. Eyes glaze over.

12:10: Semi colons make ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

12:11: Realization that grades would be pretty decent if this class were dropped…

12:12: Battery has 21 minutes left. Perhaps opening Photoshop was a bad choice.

12:13: Don’t forget ur semicolons!!

12:14: Can you call a function inside of a function call?? – a very excited FKwCV

12:16: Critical batteryyyy

12:17: Make sure you include iostream AND cmath!

12:18: Be careful of function overloading!

12:19: 2 + 3 = 5.

12:20: Must conserve battery..

This may be the last time I go to this class. Ima drop it like it’s hot yo.

Sul sito de l’Espresso, live blogging dell’udienza della Corte Costituzionale sul “lodo Alfano”.

9.38 Fuori le tv
“Adesso per favore televisioni e fotografi fuori”, ha detto il presidente Francesco Amirante indicando anche a gesti la necessità non disturbare l’udienza.

9.33 Inizia la relazione del giudice Franco Gallo
Il giudice costituzionale Franco Gallo ha iniziato la relazione della questione di costituzionalità del lodo Alfano. Si tratta della relazione tecnica con cui il giudice relatore spiega ai colleghi i termini delle questioni in gioco.

I have been a diehard fan of the five man operation down at Chinatown - also known as Poy Kee Yong Tao Fu - for the past one and a half years; today was my first time witnessing the stall dish out their very first bowl of noodle and YTF for the day (thanks to HW’s attendence at a lunch-time conference).

Here’s what happened:

1205 pm – Arrived at stall. Queue has formed but is not moving. Order-taking uncle is seated right in front of the stall. He would normally be standing taking orders.

1207 pm – Order-taking uncle still seated. Some in the queue are seated down on the seats next to them.

1209 pm – Noodle-cooking uncle gets up from his seat in front of the stall and walks in. Washes his hands at the tap located at the back of the stall. Moves to his usual position on stall right.

1210 pm – Bowl-distributing aunty calls out the first order to noodle-cooking uncle. $3 noodle, dry, chilli.

1211 pm – Order-taking uncle reaches for the switch on stall right and turns on the overhead lights. Store sign is now lit. Let’s get it started, in here!

1212 pm – Queue starts to move. Should be my turn in about 5 mins.

1217 pm – $3 noodle, dry, chilli, xie4 xie4 (thank you).

1237 pm – I’m sooo full…*

* for a repeat blogcast, please tune in tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after the day after.. =)

My first night-bike trip with the CFers. Was asked to drive the safety car that would accompany the convoy throughout the night; thoroughly enjoyed myself, happy to be out with a good bunch of *young* people =)

Here’s what happened:

7:57pm – 5 mins to arrival at SMU library. Picking up ML, chief instigator and lead biker.

10:32pm – Secured 12 x S$8 mountain bikes from KitRunners at East Coast Park.

11:35pm – Main body roll out! Waiting at KitRunners for NW to bring chain to lock up the extra bike that we rented.

12:10am – Arrived at check point one, junction of Guards Avenue and Upper East Coast road.

12:14am – Spotted convoy coming out of Guards Avenue, trailing KY now.

1:30am – Finished supper at Simpang, Bedok; I’ve had better satays…

2:41am – Moving out from check point three where LW gave a devotion on prayer. Have you been depending on God? Proceeding on to Pasir Ris park (convoy to travel via park connector, safety car to proceed by road).

3:33am – Arrived at Pasir Ris park, waiting for convoy to arrive.

5:08am – Leaving Pasir Ris park for last check point. Had a round of sharing and prayer at the basketball court.

6:07am – Arrived at Changi Beach carpark with 12 packets of Nasi Lemak, 6 packets of ice milo and 6 packets of teh bing. There is a total of 13 of us.

7:11am – Finished breakfast, departing for East Coast Park to return bikes. Safety car to convert to safety bike and meet convoy half way back to ECP.

9:37am – Back home… zzz…