December 2006: It Got Sort of Cold Here

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[There are Very Few Pictures to be Had]

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What is is about the winter that creates a shortage of pictures? Is it that awkward period between the high points of the semester? Probably. In that case, we respectfully submit these pictures as an indication and a reminder of the (sometimes) calming and relaxing actives undertaken as the fall semester winds down and the spring semester begins to heat up.

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Section 2:
December 2006

After what had been an extremely mild fall, winter came down with a vengance. So we all tried to stay inside and keep a low profile. Unfortunately, it also happened to be the end of the semester, so with all fo the exams and the exciting, action packed conclusion of NerdFest we found this rather difficult.


Fall NerdFest '06 Family Feud and Closing Ceremony!
	December 2, 2006. The date of the exciting, action packed conclusion to the inaugural NerdFest, The National Residence Hall Honorary's Campus Program of the Month for December 2006! To the left is the event flyer: complete with a multitude of fonts and a mock olympic logo made from penrose triangles.
Commencing Erin Rubin's Pictures, as I was too busy setting up the Family Feud game board and running the scoring system to take pictures. Look at those cables! Look at those computers! Look at that snazzy shirt! Look at that glazed over look in my eyes! (I had a cold.)
	Here, Jeremy checks the time as he puts the finishing touches on the physical arrangements. 3 TVs, 1 projector and screen, 1 academic bowl buzzer system, 1 kickin' speaker and wireless mic system, 4 laptops, 1 VCR, hundreds of feet of cables: check.
The Main Campbell side: BOO!
	The Hillcrest side: Yay!
Here's the final arrangement: the game board on the projected screen in the back with the sound running into the speakers under the center TV, one TV (in the center) for the round score, one TV for each side's score, and a whole crapload of cables to plug each of those screens into its own laptop. Oh, and did we mention that the center screen can also show an applause sign, the Family Feud logo and theme song, custom messages to the audience (such as "Back in 5 Minutes"), or an awesome photo slideshow? No? Well, it can.
	Originally, the plan was to get a member of the Honors staff to host the event, in the interests of impartiality and all. However, after a test run at the first fall coffeehouse (about halfway down this page), we found out that Second Floor Greg was the perfect match for the job. Here, he gets jiggy with the Family Feud theme music as the team captains look on.
The Main Campbellonian faction was a force to be reckoned with.
	However, just when things weren't looking good for our heroes, the Hillcrustacean delegation struck back.
"Show me Potato Salad!" [Ding!]
	"Name something more dangerous than sharks with lasers." Answers include: Resident Advisers, Bears, Nothing, Women Drivers, Other Things with Lasers, and Honors Director Jack Dudley.
Greg: Name a place to relax in Blacksburg. Curtis (right): Christiansburg? Ha, ha. But seriously, Erin also took some videos. Here's one, and here's another. They show how it works.
	After the Hillcrest team realized that these answers (graciously provided by Summit Community and Theme Housing RAs) were quite obscure, they came up with a strategy of Playing versus passing, thus leaving the Main Campbell team to guess the nigh-impossible final answer to steal the points. Here, Curtis of Main Campbell ponders his next move.
Here, Hillcrest's Coordinator Jeremy and Main Campbell's Coordinator Joanna thank everybody for coming and everybody who helped out. Oh, and Dr. Papillon, Honors' representative at the judge's table, talks about how awesome this sort of thing is and how Hillcrest should strive to be more like Main Campbell in every way possible and other things analagous to how an older sibling (Hillcrest) feels after a new baby (the 1.5 year old Main Campbell community who is obviously much better than us) enters a family. Not that we're bitter or anything. More Pictures After the Following Load of Text
A NOTE ABOUT THE FAMILY FEUD SYSTEM: I'm actually fairly proud of how it turned out. For about a week before the first coffeehouse and a week and a half before the actual event, my only hobby was working on the game system. Four computers were needed for sheer awesomeness contained within the programs. The game itself was a very complicated powerpoint program utilizing trigger rectangles. When the presentation was run on a tablet computer, the operator (in this case, Jeremy and Dr. Papillon) could simply tap the screen in a designated location to either reveal a correct answer or display X's to signify an incorrect answer. Oh, and I found WAV files of the actual game sounds to play in association with the various slide actions. All of the other displays were simply websites. I made HTML files for what I wanted to show on the screen and used a computer running in extended desktop mode for the display. That way, I could have the raw HTML file showing on the laptop screen while showing the associated website in Fullscreen mode on the attached TV (try it, just hit the F11 key to toggle it on or off). For the scoreboards, it was a simple matter of changing a number in the HTML and setting the webpage up to refresh automatically every second so by saving the HTML the page would automatically update. Finding an LCD-esque monospaced font also helped. For the other displays, I just used the same kind of page to automatically display whatever was typed into a text file or made some sort of dynamic image swap using javascript. All of these laptops were connected through combinations of s-video and composite video cables and appropriate adapters. Do you need to hook your computer up to a TV? Ask me, I've got plenty of spare cables to lend out. Sorry for the interlude, but I just wanted to get that out there. I spent a fair amount of time on this. GET FAMILY FEUD STUFF! (or just take a look at it): Click on the links below to find more about our absurd questions, look at the game board, or see the software behind the magic. Family Feud Questions - For printing on 4x6 index cards Family Feud Answers - For judges' table Family Feud Game - Ready to go, complete with practice question. In presentation mode: click on the numbered bars to reveal answers, click on the black space bordering the edge of the screen adjacent to the numbered bars to re-cover an answer, and click the upper left, upper right, and lower left corners to display one, two, and three X's respectively. Family Feud Round Score Family Feud Hillcrest Score Family Feud Main Campbell Score Family Feud Generic Text - Displays messages for the audience. Family Feud Logo - Family Feud logos that fade from white to black and back by themselves. Applause Sign - The audience loved it. Family Feud Fullscreen Popup - Contains a list of pages containing logos and such to display in full screen mode. If you try to save these HTML files and they don't work, you need this CSS file as well. Feel free to use this stuff to work off of or to have a good time with your family or friends.
	Unfortunately, despite Hillcrest's victory in this event, Main Campbell still took the series. Here, Jeremy and prodigal Main Campbellonian Steve talk about the NerdFest trophy: Bill's Chair. See here for more information.
And then, as both the Keeper of the Chair and the eldest Main Campbellonian, Steve presented the chair to himself.
	Following that presentation, we watched a slideshow of the various pictures set to appropriate music that Joanna had put together. You, too can watch it! It's awesome. Just follow this link! Oh, right. And then the two communities put aside their differences and gathered around Honors Director Jack Dudley for a tremendous group photo.
My Most of Mes!
Remember that one time when a bunch of me sat around in the living room? No? Well, here's the picture. Anywho, I'm at it again. This week, we all got in a heated argument.
	Abbey Road!
And then Jeremy and I, Jeremy and I, Jeremy and I, and Jeremy and I playe a game of Cranium in the dining room. From left to right: Jeremy is acting like Winston Churchill (a Family Guy reference), I'm strangling Jeremy for rolling the die (a skill he fails to excell at), Jeremy tries to guess my blind drawing, and I spell a word incorrectly while Jeremy looks on in shame. Thanks to Kevin for manning the camera for this one, thereby tripling the amount of people working on this photograph.
Food!
	23 people attending a D2sday event! The record has now been tied.
New Projector!
Hey everybody, look at what I bought in the surplus auction! Technology straight out of 1996: an LCD panel projector!
	I actually bought 3 of them in a lot. I sold one off, so now I wound up paying about $10 each. The unit is the black plastic thing with the orange "ET" painted on it twice. It has a transparent window containing a liquid crystal display, and when it is placed on a really bright light (like this overhead projector), the image is illuminated and in this case projected onto a wall. Assuming the room is dark enough, that is.
Ta da!
	Long story short: we watched Blazing Saddles using technology I last used on a HyperStudio presentation about Mars in 4th grade. I remember using so many graphics that I was worried that I wouldn't be able to put the file on the teacher's computer using the floppy disk I had been allocated. I was incredibly amazed that I had created a file over ONE MEGABYTE in size... woah...