Charter’s OnDemand service was recently enabled at my apartment, and I love it. I already had all the movie channels but I rarely watch the movies because I don’t catch them when they start. That’s why I love OnDemand so much. I can watch tons of movies whenver I want, for free! (Well, for the price of my subscription to all the movie channels.) I was just about to cancel my movie channels because I never took advantage of them. Now because of OnDemand, I don’t mind paying for them. I’ve especially been into the Band of Brothers series from HBO. Good stuff!!

This weekend is the annual Old-Fashioned Days in my hometown of Millington. It’s a fun time, especially since there’s usually not much to do in the small town. I’m looking forward to going to the beer tents and catching up with friends. There is a parade this evening that I might go see, depending on if it’s still looking rainy. I’m looking forward to some fun… it should be a great weekend!

Tonight Derek, Mike, and I started snow carving at Zehnder’s Snowfest in Frankenmuth. We’re sculpting a person sitting with his hands crossed on his knees (see the sketch). The weather forecast says it is going to be around 38° and sunny each of the next few days while we sculpt. That’s nice for people coming to look at the sculptures, but it’s a little warm to work on them… so we’ll probably do most of our work at night. Hopefully all goes well!! We get done Saturday morning, so I’ll post pictures sometime after that!

Update (2/5/05): We finished sculpting at 10:00 this morning, but we stayed up all night to finish it. We actually weren’t behind schedule, but because of the weather we wanted to work on it at night. Early this morning we slowly worked on different parts to make sure it was how we wanted it. So, since I’m really tired, I didn’t end up taking any pictures. I’m hoping to find someone who will have some nice pictures of the sculptures.

It was a memorable experience to be a part of the first Motown Winter Blast in Detroit. I was very impressed!! There was lots of things to see and do. The snow slide was a big hit, with lines as long as 1 to 2 hours. People also seemed to enjoy the sled dogs and the ice skating rink.

Snow sculpting went very well. We finished our sculpture without having to rush very much, but we didn’t place in the top 4 either. It’s still fun, but it would be nice to place in an event!! See my Motown Winter Blast 2005 gallery for all the pictures.

The festival was larger than they had planned. They expected 100,000 people to attend, but 275,000 people actually attended. Everything was planned out very well, so it didn’t seem too crowded. I talked to one of the people who was in charge of keeping everything organized, and he said that there were 800 volunteers for the festival this year! That was a lot of people, and you could tell, since just about everywhere you looked you could see a person wearing a Motown Winter Blast jacket. But next year during the Super Bowl, there will be 8,000 volunteers!! There definitely are lots of people trying to make a difference for Detroit!

So far, I think they’re doing a good job making a difference, too. My view of downtown Detroit has changed. Before, I would only go downtown for Lions or Tigers games, but now I wouldn’t mind going there more often. I have to say that I was a little skeptical—and I don’t think I was alone—when I heard about how they’re trying to change Detroit’s image. But I think they’ve really done a lot to help it, especially if they can continue the success of the festival even after the Super Bowl.

Starting Thursday, I’ll be working on a snow sculpture at the new winter festival in Detroit, called Motown Winter Blast. The festival is put on by the Detroit Super Bowl XL committee and is running this year to prepare for the Super Bowl in 2006. It seems like it’s going to be a real nice thing for the city of Detroit. They’re really trying to improve the city’s image for all the people who will be around for next year’s Super Bowl. I’m glad to be a part of the event. The closer it gets, the more excited I get about it, so I hope all goes well. If you’d like to find out more about the snow sculpting event, see their page for the General Motors Snow Spectacular & Ice Show.

Stick Figure Death Theatre features some great Flash animations of—you guessed it—stick figures. Knowing how hard it can be to make even stick figures look good in Flash, this site is amazing. If you feel up to the challenge, you can even submit your own animation.

The short film called Fellowship 9/11 reveals the shocking truth behind The Lord of the Rings. It was not a classic struggle between good and evil, but a fight for oil. Find out more information at the Fellowship 9/11 website or by watching the film at IFILM.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Isn’t it amazing that you can read this when it shouldn’t make any sense? Maybe you’ve heard this before, but Matt Davis of the University of Cambridge is researching how people perceive jumbled letters—if this is even true or if it would work in different types of languages.