We’re in NYC for a brief mid-semester getaway.
It’s cool but not uncomfortably so, and we’ve been spending the time shopping and sightseeing.
I’ve been to the city many times but not this late in the year and this was the first time I’d seen the Rockefeller center ice rink!
Here’s a local, not too bothered by the tourists gawking at him:
And here’s Times Square at night in temperatures of ~5 C:
No matter the time of year, it always seems to be busy here 🙂
We’ve got a brand new wild bird shop near us and today they had some rescued birds to see. Of course we went for a peep!
That’s a bard owl, a big bird that is apparently becoming increasingly common.
That’s a common crow. He could talk! He didn’t do it on command but we clearly heard him say “Hello who’s there?” It was a little creepy to be honest.
This was the highlight for us, a big beautiful raven. We don’t see these around our place (crows though are very common) but apparently they’re common in the woods just south of here. His feathers were glossy and handsome and his beak wickedly curved. These are amongst the most intelligent of birds, and we still don’t understand how they are able to communicate sophisticated information to each other.
This is a screech owl. He was only about 15 cm talk and motionless. If it wasn’t for his blinking he could have been a statue. As you can see, he was extremely cute!
And lastly a barn owl, which are our most common owl. He was a bit alarmed and kept making a raspy warning sound.
They were all cute and the owls reminded me of the owl cafe we visited in Tokyo. Maybe I should go back there one day…
The vast majority of my students are ‘juniors’ which is what we call 3rd years here in the US. Experienced students therefore; slightly more likely to focus on studies than other pursuits. One of them said yesterday that for various reasons she thought junior year would be her best year in college.
My original junior year was 1992. I was a ‘pure mathematics’ major then, in the thick of studies. Do I remember it as my best year? Do I remember it at all?
I found the above photo online, and it shows 4 University of Newcastle (UON) math department professors back in 1992. The occasion was to celebrate a $20,000 grant for new computer equipment. I had classes with the two in the right and possibly the second from left as well. I don’t recall the lessons at all, except that class sizes were small and I never found the work very challenging.
I don’t remember doing homework or taking exams. I don’t remember enrolling in classes or getting my grades. I don’t remember a single classmate and aside from an infamous nudist computer science professor I don’t really remember any of my instructors either. (Were it not for that photo I never would have remembered the guys that taught most of my classes!)
What I do recall from my university days are long bus rides, somewhat uncomfortable lectures (there was no AC in the classrooms), very inexpensive lunches at the campus center (sausage roll and a can of Coke) and many, many hours spent between classes in the library or computer rooms.
I don’t remember any strong feeling of studying toward a goal in those days. I would just attend classes (always math or linguistics, which I had bizarrely kept taking classes in) without much thought of why or what I wanted to ‘do’ with my life. A professor guided me toward an actuarial scholarship during 1992 which – after going to Sydney for qualifying exams – I was surprised to be offered before turning it down when I realized I wasn’t actually interested.
Of course 1992 was when KLS visited Australia, and while I hadn’t at the time decided I’d leave Australia I wonder if the seed had been planted?
My leisure time in those days was spent playing games (it still is…), hanging with friends and using the nascent internet. I had a big collection of friends in those days, many of which had cars or lived nearby so I was rarely without someone to bother 🙂
I also took advantage of student train fares to take frequent day trips to Sydney and have more vivid memories of them than I do of my daily university grind! I expect in those days I may have supposed my future lay in Sydney (there was a brief investigation into law school…) but I can’t recall thinking of what I’d do there.
By the end of 1992 I’d started the (hellish!) immigration process and turned my eyes to distant shores. For many this would have been a very stressful prospect, but I recall embracing it with the optimism I’ve gone through most of my life and as a result feeling even less pressured by school.
1992 in retrospect was a year in which I was lazily learning to be an adult without the associated challenges. My junior year and last full year at UON – and in Oz – was carefree, relaxing and overall one I hold fuzzy but warm memories of. I suppose I would have to say that yes, it was my best year of my first college career, and I suspect were I able to pop back and ask the me of ’92 how his life was going he’d say “Pretty good!”
I’ve been on a bit of a retro gaming bender recently, and have bought (and played!) several games for Game Gear, Genesis and NES. One of these was a favourite of my youth, King’s Bounty.
The game was originally released back in 1990 on PC and Mac but this is the Genesis version from 1991. It’s a turn-based strategy game where you control an ever-increasing army on a quest to find a magic item. It’s a classic, and led to the very popular Heroes Of Might And Magic series.
I loved this one half a life ago but hadn’t played it in years. A couple of weekends ago I hooked up the Genesis and gave my newly repurchased (for $15) cartridge a whirl.
I started with the Crusader, playing at the easiest setting. At first I stumbled around forgetting what to do or how to beat the clock but it didn’t take me that long for it to all start coming back…
Within an hour or so I was fiendishly addicted once again, and as the day went on I advanced through the quest until the fourth continent when I upgraded my army to flying units. If you know the game, you know this is the final step to victory.
And shortly thereafter I did indeed win! My very first game in maybe 25 years and I won handily. Although maybe just because I had used the easiest character at the easiest setting? Couldn’t I do better?
I had enjoyed it so much I immediately restarted on a higher difficulty with the mage, who many say is the hardest character.
This time I min-maxed like crazy and was laser-focused on victory. While the Crusader took me about five (real time) hours to win with, it was less than a single hour before I reached the victory screen with the mage. As you can see I took far fewer days and got a much higher score:
And yet, I could have done better! Three of the boss villains remained alive, and had I killed them before finding the treasure I could have squeezed out a few more points. However I’d spent an entire Sunday playing and ran out of time. But just in case you’d like to ‘load’ my save right before victory so you can kill those bosses yourself, here’s the password:
Let me know if you beat my score 🙂
I’ve seen my fair share of real bad Star Wars merchandise over the years and thought I was immune to excessive awfulness but this product tested my limits:
‘Star Wars Science’ they say, where you excavate alien skulls of beloved Star Wars creatures. Science…
That’s the list of possible skulls to be found, educationally compared to mundane Earthbound examples. I wonder which one I’ll get…?
The contents of the box. I reckon that’s alien dirt waiting to be dug, although since this could be some sort of space shipping container I guess it could be space vermiculite? I was impatient though and upended the whole thing:
Golly gee is that a Zabrak skull I see? Ancient remains of Darth Maul’s noble race that sometimes has the horns growing out of the head and sometimes stuck on as decoration?
Well yes it is a Zabrak! It’s in three pieces no less, so this sucker must have died a wretched death. Cleaning the space dirt off was a chore, and the inch-high skull didn’t go together as cleanly as it should, but I suppose it’s a curiosity if nothing else…?
Nah it’s awful, has zero play value and isn’t close to worth the $6 I paid for it. Even for a SW maniac like me this is terrible, so avoid at all costs…
(Except Bernard, who can expect one for Christmas!)