Ooh! Ooo two!

I was planning on posting about this a few days ago, but I finally got around to it today. OpenOffice.org is an open-source (see a pattern here?) alternative to Microsoft Office. Version 1.1.4 was comprable to Office 97. Not real great. So I tried 2.0 beta. It was drastically improved, and made leaps and bounds towards Office 2000/XP. Much better-looking, has a better feeling to it, and is just plain better. But it was buggy. Since it was a beta, that was expected, but it still made me sad. Now, finally, Ooo 2.0 is released. Same thing, less bugs. Try open office out - click the button down there on the right. I'm beginning to like Sun Microsystems more now.

Blender + Wikipedia = Awesome

First of all, to the guy (or gal) who looked at my blog with linux, congrats for using the best OS out there. But on the topic of the day, I've been playing around with Blender some more. And I'm still impressed. I've been finding all kinds of awesome tricks, much thanks to the tutorial on Wikibooks. I've been having so much fun, in fact, that I've ventured deeper into the world of Wikipedia. Wikipedia, run by the same people as Wikibooks, is the open-source encyclopedia. Despite the fact that its open nature makes vandalism easy, it's not much of a problem thanks to the many administrators who watch out for issues and fix them. I've been a member of wikipedia for a while, and I've edited a few articles and cleaned some up. But recently, I found the requested illustration. Hooray, I thought, I can help. So I found a request for a picture of a burette. "I can do that," I thought, "we've got those at school." So I took a picture, and now you can see them in the article. That made me happy. But then I found the image recreation requests page. I was elated! Wow, I can really do this! So I set out to illustrate and recreate. I found a request for a nucleosome. Looking at the previous illustration, I realized it would be a perfect thing to do in, guess what, Blender. So that's what I'm working on now.
I'm glad to be able to contribute to the greatness of wikipedia, and I'm really glad that I found Blender (and GIMP) to help. Isn't open-source the greatest? Anyway, y'all should check out the wikipedia and see how you can help. Look at the Community Portal for ideas. Or you can just go and throw rocks at stuff. Just make sure it's not alive, and measure how far it goes.

A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

All right, it's been a good week and a half since I've posted. But now that my life is a little more normal, and I'm waiting for my competent cells to chill for a while, listening to my new Switchfoot album, I'm in the mood for a good post or two. But first, I should finish the review that I started writing almost two weeks ago.
I recently watched A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as one might guess from the title of this post. The movie revolves around Arthur Dent, a hapless John Doe who finds out that his best (and probably only) friend isn't even human. While Dent (a name strangely familiar to Adventures in Odyssey fans) is distraught over his house being demolished, his friend ensures that he and his friend get a ride on the alien ship that is demolishing Dent's home planet. Eventually, against (literally) all odds, they get picked up by the most technologically advanced ship in the galaxy within 30 seconds of being ejected into space. The movie is MPAA rated PG for "thematic elements, action and mild language." The language, as I noticed it, consists of a few instances of misuse of the Lord's name, and the movie pokes fun at religion in general a couple times. Other than that, we breifly see Trillian (Zooey Deschanel) in a large towel, but surprisingly, nothing worse.
I can't compare this movie to the book, since I haven't read it. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are madder than a, um, caged yellow jacket, about how this film destroys and defiles the book. But the fact that the author of the book wrote the screenplay (a scenario that has happily been played out in several movies recently) should have kept the spirit of the book. Overall, it is a hilarious, relatively clean movie. There's also something in there for you poltical junkies, as there is plenty of symbolism. And, of course, there is the answer to everything. It makes for a great movie night, and an awesome laugh. 4¹/₂ stars from me.