Shouzer

You may recall that we participated in a competition called PuzzleCrack last semester. It was a week-long ordeal with various puzzles every day of the week. The Saturday at the end of the week culminated with a big metapuzzle. Fun was had, and prizes were given away.

Well last Saturday was the first ever PuzzleCrunch, a smaller version of PuzzleCrack for the Spring semester which was hosted by Microsoft. Obviously we had to do it again. It was 6 hours long, running from 2pm to 8pm. There were 18 puzzles to solve during that time, and they involved going around to various parts of campus and finding clues.

We ended up getting 3rd of 40+ teams, so I was definitely happy with that. The top three teams go prizes. 1st place got an Xbox 360, two $100 Best Buy gift certificates, and other 360-related goodies. 2nd place got three $50 Best Buy gift certificates. 3rd place got three wireless keyboards and mice from Microsoft, which you can check out here. Plus, we got some shirts and hats. Everybody who went got some free shirts from Microsoft, pizza, soda, and candy. I certainly couldn’t complain.

In all, it was a lot of fun and a nice change of pace from the typical Saturday. I thought it was a little strange that our prizes were worth more than 2nd place, but I figure it’s probably because even if the keyboards/mice sell for $100, they’re probably not worth that much to Microsoft, who makes them. Still cool, though.

Shot of the southern end of Manhattan from the boat to the Statue of Liberty.

Do you guys want me to continue doing this?  Or have I become that annoying person that makes you sit through a slideshow of his vacation?

This is one of two ice skating rinks in Central Park. It is the famous one that you see in all of the movies.  You can see the Plaza Hotel in the background behind the tree.  They were doing construction on it so there was scaffolding all over it.

We did go ice skating in this rink.

This is Times Square.  The locals hate it because it is so touristy and flashy.  I thought it was pretty cool though.  I could see it getting on my nerves if I lived there though.

So here’s link from /. about a New Jersey bill that would prohibit people from posting anonymously to online forums. WTF is that? Seriously, now..

I might be wrong.. I very well could be. But isn’t the reason we split the Bell companies up was because they were more or less a monopoly? So why are we allowing them all to merge again? It just doesn’t make any sense. Well, either that or the government doesn’t care about monopolies anymore. Big business!

Oh, I know you missed it. Well, you can finally get your fix again. Here is today’s picture of the day:

This is a sunset view from the south side of the Empire State Building’s observation deck.  Most of my pictures are now in my webspace in the same directory as this one.  So if you know where that is, you can take a look at them whenever you want.  If not, you will have to wait for me to post them.

just so you guys know, the cleveland plains dealer is reporting that Magic officials are claiming that they’re stockpiling money to make a free-agent run at Lebron in the summer of 2007. *cry* no no, those are tears of joy.

I’m having tons of fun here in New York.  So far, we’ve seen the Empire State Building, Times Square, Statue of Liberty, Letterman, Central Park, and much more.  The Letterman taping was a whole lot of fun.  The guests were crap, but the show was still really fun.  We’re going to see Conan tonight and hopefully a Broadway show some time soon.

Best thing we’ve seen so far:  Empire State Building.  We watched the sunset from the top, which was absolutely incredible.  That also meant we got to see it during the night and the day.

Best Place we’ve eaten:  Zen.  It was a vegetarian restaurant.  We walked in thinking it was just an Asian place and were a bit surprised when we saw the menu, but the food was incredible.  I had no idea vegetarian could actually be good.

More details and pictures to come.  I’m sitting in Starbucks now, and I feel like leaving to go do something more fun.

I think Steve Jobs and Apple might be losing their “magic”. I have nothing at all against their current products–I think most of them are great. The iPod still isn’t as functional as many other players, but it also doesn’t cost 3x as much anymore.

Today Apple announced the iPod Hi-Fi. It’s basically a small stereo system that you have to plug your iPod into in order to get it to play. In other words, it only plays music that’s on an iPod. Price? A smooth $349. That’s just crazy. I find it hard to believe that there’s going to be a lot of people who really jump for their credit cards when they see that sucker.