Hmm, I'm Confused by Transformers II

Well, I just went over to my pals' place to do my laundry and I was watching Transformers 1 with them and thought to myself, "Hmm, that's weird." Is it not strange that a lot of the plot of Transformers 2 is about keeping the humans from knowing about the huge killer robots around, but they have this huge battle in Transformers 1 and take out half the city? Wouldn't like 98% of the people in that city have video of the event?

Maybe you just have to assume the government brought in Will Smith and the Men In Black with a huge "flashy-thing" to reset the memory of the entire city. Anyhow, just a thought I thought I'd share. In other Rick-news, I just finished a big project of transcribing the SEDS episode of SpaceVidcast. You can see the result below (the lower-right button turns on transcriptions). I think this is well worth my time because of the awesome Computer Science pros at Google who will translate my transcription into almost anything automatically on Youtube. Cool beans! Enjoy!

Current Stock Picks: Pretty Standard (buyer's market)

Well, for anyone glancing to see which stocks I like (too bad my money is financing my new car and not stocks), here they are (from a note to a friend today):

I kind of agree with Jim Cramer (Mad Money) who said yesterday that while some claim that the sky is falling, the market really isn't doing horribly bad just because unemployment is high. If you buy in to any good solid companies right now you really can't go wrong a year or two down the road. Of those companies, I would say my best bet would be on Microsoft still (I'm using Windows 7 and can tell you everyone will buy this) or Carbo Ceramics (CRR). I would also look at BNI (they are way undervalued and are probably doing good business), PEP (I like the new CEO a lot), and JNJ (they still have cash up the wazoo).

Those are the 5 I would definitely head after right now. Railroads, pop, software, etc. which are fairly recession-proof to some extent. They're large caps too, which is what you should look at because now is the time to get a good price on large caps.

See Cool Things While Driving to Iowa

Well, I made the long drive back to Cedar Rapids today (though it was a little shorter than I thought when I ditched any plans to stop on the way). On the way I saw some cool stuff:

In Minnesota, I saw the most highway patrol cars I think I have ever seen in my life (total). They appeared to be working in twos. Luckily I didn't get pulled over.

In Waterloo, IA I thought it was cool to see a big lot where Vestas was stashing some of their newly constructed wind turbine parts (they now have a plant there). Vestas is pretty cool and have provided a bunch of money for FIRST LEGO league over the past couple of years. Anyways, it was neat to see these massive turbine blades and huge cylinders (I figure part of towers) sitting in a lot near the highway.

Then, of course I had to tell my mother that I saw the Wells Fargo & Co. stagecoach truck go by as I approached my destination. The stagecoaches are pretty cool, but I always tell my mom that they would do much better advertising if they did something to use the Wells Fargo guard dog, "Jack" in their advertising. At least we agree that their ad department are not that amazing, so they will probably not ever do this.

Amused by Zombies, Thanks to Samuel

Well, I am now quite amused due to Samberb's suggestion that we do a Humans vs Zombies next year at Iowa State. To put it simply, Humans vs Zombies is an impromptu game that was started by some students at Goucher College back in 2005. Basically you begin with many humans and 1 zombie. The zombie turns humans to zombies by touching them and the humans try to survive and outlast the zombies, who die in 2 days without "eating" a human. I am putting a quick video showing what goes on below:

New HvZ Trailer from HvZ Source on Vimeo.

Then after perusing more information, I happened across the Zombie Squad, "an elite zombie suppression task force ready to defend your neighborhood from the shambling hordes of the walking dead". I'm even more amused by this, but it does seem like a kind of cool and fun organization that is filled with everything from off-road drivers to amateur radio operators to EMT professionals (everyone you need for a zombie attack). Anyhow, thought this was all pretty interesting because I am a fan of "28 Days Later" (which was apparently the movie that inspired the Zombie Squad).