Do Something This Weekend of August 1, 2008
“If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?”1
Geek Out
Rise up. The charmingly named Aeroballoon is in Central Park through most of August, and what better way to beat the heat than by getting 300 feet closer to the sun? From that vantage you can really shake your fist at Sol, let it feel your rage.
The Central Park Observancy has brought the “adventurous tethered balloon ride”2 to Central Park’s Cherry Hill to celebrate the park’s 150th anniversary. Unless you have rich friends on CPW, it’s the cheapest way to get a 30-story view of the park. I’m mainly enticed by the idea of telling the fellows down at the speakeasy that I went for a ride on the “aero-balloon” today! What a marvellous contraption!
A snapshot taken by a Lego Mindstorms robot as part of the High Altitude Lego Extravaganza. (Photo: Gizmodo)
For some ballooners, though, 30 stories is a trifle. Gizmodo brings news of seven Lego Mindstorms robots that ascended to 30 kilometers above the Earth’s surface—about 330 times higher than the Aeroballoon—taking pictures on the way up (and down). You probably can’t get together your own weather balloon and engineering team on such short notice; you can still snap some amazing shots with a more old-fashioned device, the kite. Charles Benton’s Kite Aerial Photography is a good place to start for help with supplies, techniques, etc. This isn’t exactly something you can try in midtown Manhattan, but don’t lie, you’re getting out of the city this weekend, anyway.
Geek In
Wield the blade. Sure, Soulcalibur IV is the latest blockbuster game release this week. If you’re going to hit your local game store, considering leafing through the trade-in bins for an old copy of Soul Blade for the PlayStation. For whatever reason, Soul Blade (née Soul Edge), the predecessor to the Soulcalibur series, never gets its due—probably because the majority of players were introduced to the series on the Dreamcast, where Soulcalibur ruled supreme. Soul Blade has many of series’ familiar characters, and it holds up well.
The summers of 2000 and 2001 were rife with afternoons spent battling my cousin in the Soul Blade arena. I always figured we were pretty evenly matched, until one night when I did something to piss him off (we don’t remember exactly what). My cousin took a drag off his cigarette, pounded a few Double Stuf Oreos, and spent the next hour destroying me in 30 consecutive matches. At the end, I was in tears. They were not tears of sadness. Rather, they were borne of awe and admiration. Hope you inspire such respect in your opponents this weekend.
All contents copyright © 2007-2010 John Teti.
