Entries this day: flash_mania

flash mania

Monday 19 July 1999

This past weekend Wende and I attended Flashmania, a conference for Flashnet representatives. (We both get commission for selling Flashnet accounts) Flashnet is the first ISP to offer free PCs to people who sign up for access!

Anyway, the weekend was also cool for other reasons:

• Wende and I went to Six Flags Over Texas and rode the new Batman ride! It's a suspended looping coaster, that seats 4 people across. It had not been completed when we went to the park in like April. But now it's done and we rode it! Only once though; we didn't stay all day at the park.

  We also rode MR Freeze, which happens to be right next to Batman since they are both Batman themed rides. In April, the line for MR Freeze had been 1.25 hours. Now it was like 15 minutes! Amazing!

• Wende and I got to meet Kusko (pronounced "kuss ko"), a woman who filmed most of Flashmania. She's super cool and super funny! During one 45 minute class thing, I decided to not attend class and just talked with Kusko. During that time, she filmed this sequence: me sleeping, with a nice closeup of drool coming out of my mouth, wake up, oh-my-gosh late for something look, then collect my stuff in a rush and run offscreen, oops wrong way, and I run back across screen and drop all my business cards in a huge scatter!

  It took 6 tries to get this whole sequence without Kusko laughing and shaking the camera, but it was really funny and we had a great time. She said she'll send me the video.

• Some of the balloons that decorated the convention center for us were fully 4 feet across. At the end of the last night, a group of us took two of the balloons and bounced them around in a tall hallway. I had a lot of fun with that; moreso than it seems as I write about it!

  I took one of the balloons home (actually a third one as our games ended when we popped the first two) and was all, "hmm. big balloon."

  So, I filled it with water in the bathtub. This balloon is taking up fully one half of my bathtub, about 2/3rds the depth of the tub! I noted a most interesting thing about this large water-filled balloon: If the opening of the balloon was straight up on top of this squished ball of water, the pressure within the nozzle kept the water in the balloon from squirting out:

  
              *|   |*
               |---|  <--- water level
               |   |
      _________|   |_________
     /                       \
    |                         |
    |      full of water      |
    |                         |
    |                         |
     \_______________________/
  
  

  If the nozzle fell over, the water would squirt out happily. Pretty amazing! I remember a story in physics class that described how much pressure results in a column of water. This experiment tends to confirm the story!

Tonight (Monday July 19) I'll be on KTRU from 10pm to 1am. It's the Genetic Memory Show. I don't know what that means, but I get to play the most obnoxious of the most obnoxious music that we have at KTRU! YAY! Listen in Houston at 91.7fm or on the web at KTRU.org.

See ya!

Oh wait! Last thing about Flashnet: I'm increasing my sales, so I'll offer $15 to anyone who refers to me a Flashnet sale! Sign up online at www.flash.net/~robnugen and email me that you (or someone) signed up. 30 days after the sale (once the 30 day money back guarantee is over) I'll send you a check for $15!

If you're thinking "how the heck can he do that?" call 888-298-4173 for opportunity details! permalink