A Little Friday Poetry

My dog has taken up what I consider an amoral relationship with the tarp under the deck, currently being used to cover our bales of pinestraw. I thought it was just a passing fad, but I found this little masterpiece scrawled on the back of the dog biscuit box. I think it may be turning into something more serious. An intervention may be in order. At any rate, I'm passing it along for your consumption.

An Ode To A Tarp by Henry T. Cockapoo

I love you my tarp
so blue and crinkly
I long to hit you
With my long stinky pinky

How I longed for you
As you sat on the straw
But you never saw me
or noticed me at all

Then you beckoned me
with a fluttering corner
And I stuck my thumb in your plum
like little Jack Horner

Why should I listen
when they call me inside?
When I can be enjoying
The Big Blue Tarp Ride?

They don't understand us
What we have together
With you under the deck
I can hump in all kinds of weather.

It's sad this age
does not understand
the love and commitment
between a tarp and a man.

Worry not about pregnancy
For there is no risk
Several years ago
That bastard had me fixed.

Just say the word
And we'll run away
We'll live out in the country
And hump in the hay.

Or straw, or alfalfa
corn, peas or tomatoes
or covered in dirt
as we roll twixt potatoes.

It pains me at night
When we're forced apart
But know that I carry
your love in my heart.

I weep at the window
As the wind blows through the willows.
Then I go upstairs.
And fuck all the pillows.

Whoa! I think it's best if we just stop there. Enjoy the weekend.

Thank You John H. Van Vleck

Greetings Squaddies! Nice to see you again. I haven't mentioned it in some time, but I don't want you to think that I'm completely running the science show here. If you have a burning question, or some piece of the universe's grand puzzle is keeping you awake at night, simply leave it in the comments, or send me an email and we'll get working on it pronto. The email address is suburbanjoe - at - gmail - dot - com. I'm assuming you're smart enough to take that spam-unfriendly address and turn it into something useful on the intra-web. If not, well, I think we have our next post.

So, just who in the hell is John H. Van Vleck and why are we thanking him? Mr. Van Vleck was a Nobel Prize winning physicist who was primarily responsible for ligand field theory, an apect of which we're going to discuss today as we continue our journey through the various physical and chemical causes of color.

Before we can talk about ligand field theory, as it relates to color, that is, we have to talk about ligands. Our friends over at Wikipedia define a ligand as "an atom, ion or functional group that donates its electrons through a coordinate covalent bond to one or more central atoms or ions, usually metals." The important thing there is the donation of electrons. As you may remember from our previous discussion, when one is speaking of electrons, one is also speaking of energy levels, and we all know what happens when electrons start acting all crazy and messing around with their energy levels. That's right, color. Well, that and sweet, sweet, monkey lovin'.

Colored gemstones come about when an extremely hard mineral has a very small amount of impurity (usually around 1%) introduced into it. For example, lets look at corundum. Corundum, also known as Aluminum Oxide, is the second hardest substance known to you or I. When completely pure, corundum is colorless. Add some impurities, namely titanium and iron, and you get sapphires. Replace those impurities with chromium and you get a ruby. Chromium is also responsible for the green color of emeralds, however in the case of emeralds, the base mineral is Beryl, or Beryllium Aluminum Silicate. The difference in color, as a result of the difference in the reaction between chromium and corundum and between chromium and beryl, can be explained with ligand field theory. You had to know we'd get there eventually.

Corundum, by itself, is a somewhat messed up octahedron, with a chewy center of aluminum ions surrounded by oxygen ions. In this structure, all of the electrons are paired off, which means they're not free to jump energy levels, so no light is absorbed. Hence the colorless quality. Now, lets say that we replace 1% of those aluminum centers with chromium instead. Chromium by itself has 3 unpaired electrons, but they all occupy the same energy level, so again, no energy is absorbed and no color is produced. However, when chromium is introduced into the structure of corundum, the surrounding oxygen ions, our ligand field in this case, create such a tizzy that the normally staid energy level of the three unpaired chromium electrons is split into 2 different energy levels. The three unpaired chromium electrons are now free to jump between the 2 energy levels. And how do they do this? That's right, by absorbing light. The new split in energy levels is such that the chromium electrons can absorb both green and violet light. With these parts absorbed, that leaves the red part of the spectrum to shine through, hence a ruby's red color. When chromium interacts with beryl, the resulting energy level split is smaller, so the electrons can absorb the less energetic part of the spectrum, namely yellow-red and blue. As a result, the green light is allowed to come through, hence the emerald being the gem of choice for Leprechauns everywhere. Actually, that's not true. Everyone knows that the gem of choice for Leprechauns is the rare Purple Horseshoe.

It is important to note that while we're still dealing with electrons jumping energy levels, as with last week's post, the means of color generation as a result is different. In gas excitation, energy, usually electrical energy, causes the electrons to jump a state. They're not particularly happy about this, so when they come back down, they emit radiation in the visible spectrum. When speaking about gemstones, it is the light itself that is absorbed by the electron, which in turns allows for the jump in energy levels, a situation these electrons seem quite happy with. When the electrons absorb some of the light, the remaining parts of the spectrum is what then makes it to your eye. See, in one case, the electrons are emitting radiation in the visible spectrum (Neon signs) and in the other, the electrons are absorbing radiation in the visible spectrum (Emeralds). Emeralds and rubies aren't the only gems that get their color from the ligand field effect. Garnet, topaz, torquoise, tourmaline and many other gems that you've never heard of, but your significant other no doubt wants bestowed upon them as gifts, all get their color from the interaction between impurities and their base minerals.

It's all so fascinating I can barely stand it. Remember, when someone calls you dirty and impure, perhaps for your fascination with naked hamsters, remember that it is these impurities that allow your true colors to come shining through, like the dazzling ruby and the beautiful emerald. Except for you. You're just sick.

Next week: Molecular Orbits and You, Perfect Together

Sources:
Extreme Science - Gemstones
WebExhibits - Causes of Color
Wikipedia - Ligand Field Theory
Wikipedia - Ligand
BookRags.com - Ligand Field Theory
Encyclopædia Britannica Online - Ligand Field Theory
Encyclopædia Britannica Online - John H. Van Vleck

For the Want of Friendly Indicators...

This first part has nothing to do with gaming, but I thought it was funny. I bought a Kit Kat today, as it's my favorite candy bar, and the wrapped exclaimed "Now! Twice the Crisp!" There was also an asterisk pointing you to the disclaimer "as previous Kit Kat". I would think that disclaimer would be implied, as I wouldn't expect the Kit Kat people to be able to speak to the crispiness of non Kit Kat things like horses or your grandmother. I would love to see someone get into the label factory and mess up the disclaimer so that it said something like "as a dead wolverine" or "as your throbbing love muscle". I'd find that last one kind of hard to believe, because my love muscle is way crisp.

This Friday I spent a considerable amount of time playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Much fun was had by all, however the initial matches caused some confusion due to our host deciding to not turn on indicators that would allow you to know who to, and more importantly, who not to shoot. I have taken this experience and framed it in a compelling narrative. Our players are Sgt. Andrews, Private Davis and Private Jackson. All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also, I have no idea what the rank structure is in the Army, or if the Ghost Recon people are even in the Army, or instead in some souped up offshoot of the Coast Guard.

The setting: a war torn land near you. Sgt. Andrews and Private Davis are awaiting the arrival of the rest of their squad as they begin carrying out their mission to neutralize the other team.

Davis: Sir, there's something wrong with my HUD sir!
Andrews: What is is Private?
Davis: My friendly indicators aren't working sir. I don't know who to shoot at.
Andrews: Your HUD is fine son. I turned the indicators off.
Davis: But sir, how will we know who to shoot, sir?
Andrews: They're wearing gray camo.
Davis: We're wearing gray camo, sir.
Andrews: Yes, but their camo is dark gray. Our's is light gray.
Davis: It's nighttime, sir.
Andrews: And?
Davis: And it's raining, sir.
Andrews: Then use your night vision son!
Davis: Then everyone will be white, sir.
Andrews: You'll figure it out.
Jackson: Private Jackson reporting for du--
Andrews: AAAHHHH!!! (BRRAAAPPPP!!!) Got you, you enemy son of a bitch!
Davis: That was Jackson, sir.
Andrews: Who's Jackson?
Davis: He's on our team, sir. Note the light gray camo.
Andrews: Huh.
Davis: *sigh* No matter, sir. Once he respawns he'll make his way over here.
Andrews: ...
Davis: Sir?
Andrews: ...
Davis: You turned off respawns, didn't you, sir?
Andrews: They're a crutch!
Davis: Permission to speak freely, sir?
Andrews: Are you going to say somehing bad?
Davis: Most likely, yes.
Andrews: Denied. Wait? What's that? They're here! Quick, get on the ground with me behind this rock!
Davis: Kill me now.
Andrews: (WHACK!)
Davis: Why are you hitting the wall with your head sir?
Andrews: (WHACK!) I'm (WHACK!) trying (WHACK!) to (WHACK!) peek (WHACK!) up (WHACK!) from (WHACK!) behind (WHACK!) cover. (WHACK!) Ow.
Davis: That's the single player game sir. This is multiplayer. In multiplayer, if you push up on the control stick when behind cover, you'll just -
Andrews: (WHACK!)
Davis: - hit your head, sir.
Andrews: Huh. Hey! What's that thing up there?
Davis: That's their drone, sir.
Andrews: What does it do?
Davis: It tells them that we're right here, not moving, and ripe for the taking, sir.
Andrews: Huh. Where's our drone?
Davis: You sent it out for pizza and they shot it down, sir.
Andrews: Right. 10 million dollars, and they can't program it to find a Papa John's. Damn those D.O.D. Poindexters!
Davis: Yes sir. Look, sir, they'll be right on top of us any moment now. We should think about moving out.
Andrews: Look! There's someone else from our squad! Sean! Hey, Sean! Hey, stop shooting at me, I'm on your team!
Davis: He isn't on our team, sir?
Andrews: Sure he is, Private! Look at his dark gray cam- (BLAM!)

Gripping stuff! Remember kids, if you want to be sure who to shoot, be sure to turn on friendly indicators. Don't worry about enemy indicators, because those are for pussies. Until next time, ready up and move out!

Book Review

No toddler tales today, however I'm working on a love story about a dog, a tarp, and an uncaring society that doesn't understand the depth of feelings between the two. Instead I thought I'd do a mini review of a book I just finished. Usually I don't review books here, but I thought that the folks who read this site might enjoy this one. That and I want something easy to post about. Laziness, thy name is Brandon.

The Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi

I honestly don't know where I first heard about John Scalzi, but I've been reading his Whatever site for years now. John is an excellent writer and while I don't always agree with him, I always find him entertaining. 9 times out of 10, I do agree with him, which helps, but the other 1 time, it's worth reading anyways. His is an interesting tale of how writing online helped him with getting a book deal from Tor. It's not quite that simple, as he had several books published prior to getting his Sci-Fi work published with Tor, however writing online helped considerably. I'll leave it to you to go and learn about the particulars, as I'd only get them wrong anyways.

"The Ghost Brigades" (TGB) is the second in a loose trilogy of books, "Old Man's War" (OMW) being the first. I say "loose" as I think that anyone can jump into TGB without having read OMW and be able to understand 90% of what's going on. There is some character overlap, and the universe is the same, but don't be frightened off by jumping right in with TGB. Of course, John certianly wouldn't mind if you went back and purchased OMW as well, but that's between you and your wallet.

TGB is set in the future and Earth, having long run out of space, has started the process of colonizing other planets. Like all good colonial empires, they're not alone in the need for extra space, and have found that there are plenty of other alien races eyeing the various hunks of real estate scattered throughout the galaxy. To protect the colonists, the Colonial Defense Force has come up with an ingenious way of combining the experience and knowledge of older folks with the atheleticism and quick reflexes of the young. As folks on earth approach their golden years, they enlist in the CDF. At the time of paper signing, the CDF collect genetic material from the new recruits. After the papers are signed, the recruits go about their lives until they reach their 75th birthday. At that point, they're whisked away from Earth, never to return, and their consciousness is transplanted into a new, augmented body which has been grown from their previously collected genetic material. Their bodies have SmartBlood (TM) to help with clotting and resisting disease, various strength and speed upgrades and an integrated computer known as the BrainPal (TM). Recruits who die prior to reaching their 75th birthday have their genetic material used to create even more highly augmented Special Forces soldiers, known to the "realborn" as the Ghost Brigades.

TGB's premise is a pretty cool one. Charles Boutin is a traitor in the Colonial Defense Force's midst, who has allied himself with 3 alien races, all hell bent on destroying the CDF. In trying to hide his tracks, Boutin created a clone of himself and killed it off, thereby giving the illusion of his demise. Prior to killing off the clone, he created a copy of his consciousness, complete with memory and motivations for his traitorous acts, and this copy is discovered by the CDF. The CDF decide to create a Special Forces soldier from Boutin's genetic material, and "downloading" Boutin's consciousness to it, so that they can determine Boutin's plan and motivations for turning. Thus, Jared Dirac is born. While the transfer is a success, the memories aren't there at first so Jared goes about being a "normal" Special Forces soldier, that is until Boutin's memories and motivations begin to surface.

My biggest complaint with "Old Man's War" was that it was too explainy. The various scientific concepts that underlie Scalzi's take on the universe were often explained in characters' conversations with each other. This seemed very forced to me, and pulled me out of what was otherwise outstanding, and often times humorous, dialog. Thankfully, any explaining that needs to be done in "The Ghost Brigades" is done by your friend and mine, the omniscient narrator. This helps the flow of the book immensely, and I never felt that the explanations got in the way of the narrative.

If you want long, flowery descriptions of people and places, Scalzi is not your guy. The dialog is crisp and flows well. Action scenes are well written with a lot of punch and just the right amount of detail. Scalzi allows a lot to be left to the reader's imagination, which to me, shows a certain respect to the reader, as if he's saying "go ahead, make up whatever picture you want, it's all good". Too many times, I think that writers get hung up on describing everything to where it makes reading too damn tiring. Where detail is needed, it's provided, other than that, it's the story that fills the pages, not a bunch of extra adjectives.

Character development is handled well, with just the right amount for the supporting cast to do their jobs effectively but not bog the reader down with pages and pages of backstory. Main character are, of course, fleshed out much more than the supporting cast. I never found myself questioning the motivations of anyone in the book or saying "he would never do that".

My only gripe with the book, is that I wanted more of an ending. It's a short jump from the big reveal (which kicked ass) to the end, and I wanted more there. It's not that the ending was bad, it's more that the big reveal led to another big reveal which I would have liked to see more done with. It is a trilogy though, so I'm sure that the info was just groundwork for the sequel, however for my tastes, I would have liked a little more in this book. The pacing of the ending seemed at odds with the pacing with the rest of the book, like it was sped up for the end. As I said before, it's not an unsatisfying ending, and it certainly did it's job in making me want to read the next book, but I would have liked a little more development there. I know, bitch, bitch, bitch.

There also seems to be a strange preoccupation with sex, which I found odd. Other than the classic Sci-Fi books (Ender's Game, Foundation) and the New Jedi Order books, I don't read Sci-Fi, so maybe it's common and I just don't know about it. On the other hand, the Star Wars books are sexless to the point of lunacy. How Han Solo and Leia had three kids when they obviously never touch each other is beyond me. I guess I can't fault Scalzi too much, as if were presented with a being who was genetically engineered to live in space, it wouldn't take me too long to start wondering how they "do it".

The universe that Scalzi has set up is a really interesting one, and lends itself to a myriad of stories should he want to return to it after these initial three books. Personally, I'd love to see how he'd do an ultra-ultra Special Forces soldier, a la Sam Fisher in the Splinter Cell games. That dude(tt) would be bad ass. They'd probably be able to shoot lasers from their genitals or something.

Bottom line is that this is a very enjoyable, well thought out, entertaining read. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to folks that are Sci-Fi junkies as well as people who like good stories, and are open minded to the Sci-Fi genre. The concepts discussed in the book leave things for you to think about after you've turned the last page, and the plotting and action makes you want to read more of the universe that Scalzi has created. Personally, I can't wait for the BrainPal. Tetris on that thing must be amazing.

Color Me Excited

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back. Sorry for the delay, but I can assure you that you wouldn't have wanted me posting in the state I was in last week. I can tell you that my body did afford me to see a whole new array of colors as I went about evacuating all food from my person. Who knew that food could undergo such miraculous transformations? Thanks to all those who express concerned for my well being. Now that we're all back, let's continue on learning about color.

I'm So Excited, and I Just Can't Hide It
As we talked about last time, there are 15 causes of color, broken down into 5 classifications. This week we're going to talk about Vibrations and Excitations which includes:

• Gas Excitations
• Incandescence
• Vibrations and rotations

Before we can talk about these things, though, we need to have a small talk about the basic atomic structure of things. As you may remember from your science classes, atoms are the smallest particle of a substance that still retains the substance's chemical properties. In other words, an Iron atom may be made up of smaller particles, but these particles, taken on their own, would in no way indicate Iron's ironic goodness. Atoms consist of protons, neutrons and electrons. The protons and neutrons, which account for most of the atom's mass, hang out in the "center" of the atom, in the nucleus. The electrons hang out in an electron cloud, surrounding the nucleus. When I was a kid, an atom was always depicted with the Bohr Model, as a dense cluster of spheres (the nucleus) with smaller spheres (electrons) orbiting the nucleus, as planets orbit the sun. Since then, the model has changed to the electron cloud model, which instead demonstrates the area around the nucleus as a "cloud" in which there is the highest probability of finding an electron.

Electrons live in specific energy levels, based on how far they are from the atom's nucleus. The more energy the electron has, the farther away from the nucleus the electron lives. Imagine a ladder, with each rung representing an energy level, and electrons spaced out on all of the rungs. If an electron on the bottom rung were to absorb some energy, it would move up a rung. However, electrons are quite fond of their "home" rung and will usually look to get back to it. In order to do this, the electron must release the energy it absorbed when it moved up a rung. Depending on the wavelength of this released energy it may be heat, or light in the visible spectrum. As usual, this is a gross oversimplification of the process and there is so much fantastic information on the nature of matter that I could post from here until doomsday and never touch it all. Such is the awesome nature of science!

Gas Excitations
Take a gas, say, oh, I don't know, neon. Put it in a glass tube, bend the tube so that it says "Budweiser" and then run a current through the gas in the tube, and what do you get? A nice orange color and a cool sign for your bachelor pad that will be the first thing to go once your significant other moves in with you.

This is a prime example of what we mentioned before. If you excite the electrons in the gas, in this case by introducing an electric current, they'll jump up an energy level, and then, when coming back down, they'll emit radiation in the visible spectrum. The color that's produced is dependent on the gas, and, for some gases, dependent upon the strength of the current. Neon is reddish orange, Helium is whitish, Argon is bluish and Krypton was destroyed with Kal-El's family. Kidding. It's actually somewhat gray. What is important to note, is that it's not as if energized neon "makes" the color red. It simply emits radiation with a specific wavelength. When this radiation strikes the receptors in your eyes, it is perceived as the color red. If evolution (or intelligent design if you choose to swing that way) had gone another route, red might be blue. How does that bend your noodle?

Gas excitations is also the reason behind the colors of the Northern Lights. Charged particles from the sun are directed along the Earth's magnetic fields to slam into gases in the atmosphere at the poles. This collision causes energy in the visible spectrum to be emitted and we see them as auroras.

Incandescence
Incandescence works in the same way as gas excitations, only instead of a noble gas that a current is passed through, we're passing a current through a conductor, but a conductor that allows for some resistance to the electron flow. A basic light bulb consists of a filament in a glass bulb that had the oxygen removed. Current flows through the filament, but is somewhat impeded, based on the material the filament is made of. This in turn excites the electrons, causing them to, say it with me, jump up an energy level. When they return, they emit radiation in the visible spectrum. The reason that oxygen is removed from the bulb, is that the filament gets quite hot in this case, and if the bulb were filled with oxygen, the filament would burst into flame before doing that which it was made to do.

Incandescence also describes why hot things glow reddish. All objects, including your bad self, absorb and emit radation. Most of this radiation is emitted in the non-visible spectrum, usually the infrared spectrum, also known as heat. This is why your couch is warm to the touch after a marathon American Idol watching session. Your body emits infrared radiation (heat) as you sit. It is absorbed by the couch, which then emits it once you leave. Similarly, if you were to turn on an electric burner, and hold your hand above it, your hand gets warm as it absorbs the infrared radiation released by the burner. As the burner gets hotter, and the electrons get more and more excited, the burner will begin to emit radiation in the visible spectrum, and it gets red. This is also why, for anyone who has ever placed their hand on a hot burner, the color red is considered a "hot " color. After all, in order for your burner to emit radiation in the visible spectrum, it first had to work on through the infrared spectrum, and that spectrum is a mite toasty.

Thermal imaging allows us to "see" objects based on the thermal radiation they emit, which is what will allow the SWAT team to nail your pasty ass should you decide to go all postal and hole up in your compound. It's also quite effective for intergalactic big game hunters.

Vibrations and Rotations
What color is water? Depends right? If you were to look at a glass of water, it'd be clear. Look at a river, and it's kind of a brownish-green. Look at an ocean in the Caribbean and it's pale blue. The fact is, is that water is blue, but not for the reasons you might think.

This is the part of the post that I have the least amount of understanding of, so please bear with me. Water molecules are composed of hydrogen and oxygen, all bonded together in nice springy molecules. As the isolated molecules come together in water, or in ice, the vibrations of these molecules are increased so that these vibrations can interact with light in the visible spectrum by way of absorbing the red portion of light. As a result, water appears to be a light shade of blue. So, why does a glass of water appear as clear, rather than blue? It's because there isn't enough water in the glass for this effect to take place. In order for light to be absorbed by water's vibrations, you need either large body, such as a lake or an ocean, or small body just extended along a long axis, as in a tube. When you see a blue ocean, part of the blue may be scattering as a result of particles in the water, some may be a reflection of the blue sky, depending on your angle of view, but some is the absorption of red light by the vibrations of water's molecules. You can see an example of blue water in a clear tube in this excellent article by the fine folks over at Dartmouth. It's a tough read, but very interesting if you take the time.

There we go. One fifth of the way done, and we've all survived thus far. Good science is any science you can walk away from, I always say. Next week we tackle the joy that is the Ligand Field Effect. Can you feel the excitement? It's palpable. I can so totally palp it.

Sources:
Encyclopedia Britannica - Vibrations and Rotations
Why is Water Blue? - Charles L. Braun and Sergei N. Smirnov, Department of Chemistry Dartmouth College
Wikipedia - Gas discharge
Encyclopedia Britannica - Gas excitation
Wikipedia - Incandescence
SPi - Thermal Infrared Blackbody Thermography
Wikipedia - Blackbody

March Madness

This month is shaping up to be the most expensive month ever. After a near drought of 360 games since launch we have 3, count 'em, 3 titles dropping this month. They are: Burnout Revenge, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Let us also not forget the appearance of the long awaited DS title, Metroid Prime: Hunters or Metroid Prime First Hunt or Metroid Prime Hunt 'Em All Up, or whatever the hell they're calling it these days. I am excited for all of these titles, for reasons I shall expand upon at length. Oh joyous day for you, that you get to read the first hand account of my breathy anticipation.

Burnout Revenge
As a rule, I'm not a big fan of racing games, because I tend to crash. A lot. I also can't handle the intricate dance between accelerating and braking, drifting and sliding, caramel and noughat needed to master racing titles. I like to mash the accelerator and only hit the brake when I need to powerslide around a corner. Enter Burnout. Not only does this method work well in Burnout, but part of the point of Burnout is to crash, and cause spectacular crashes. It is as if they watched me play Forza, took pity and decided to help a brother out. I can also race in the opposing lane of traffic, thereby giving me both an accelerator and a boost button to mash on at the same time. Occasionally as I'm driving in the opposing lane, I'll do a powerdrift around a corner and catch air at the same time, filling up my car's boost bar, and my own personal glee bar to bursting. I try to resist the urge to hump my console in these special moments.

The problem, and by problem I mean I'm a weak willed, consumerized whoredonkey, is that I already bought Burnout Revenge for the Xbox. I bought it back in November, back when I also bought X-Men Legends 2, Half-Life 2 and Far Cry: Instincts. I played X-Men and Far Cry and then my 360 came. I played some 360 games, played some Half-Life 2, played some more 360 games, and all the time, Burnout Revenge wept bitter tears of abandonment. As the calendar pages kept flying off, inching us closer and closer to March, I wanted to play Burnout less and less for fear of having to do the same races all over again on the 360. Why would this matter, you ask, if the game is so good? Every racing game, no matter how good, has races that are so brutal, so odious, that were the person who designed them sitting next to you when you ultimately completed the race, you would brain them with your controller. I did not want to come across one of these and then have to do it again. Your next question, and you would be wise to ask it, is why I just didn't play it on the Xbox and ignore it for the 360? Well, the online portion of the 360 version is better, and it has achievements, but mostly, the explosions are a lot prettier. Yes, that's right. I'm willing to pay 60 bucks, on top of the 50 I already paid to play a game I already had, just because the explosions are more explodey. I'm a sick man and I need help. I was glad to see that they removed the golf-swing meter thing for the Crash Junction levels, but personally, I think they need to go back to the Burnout: Takedown Crash Junction levels as they were brilliantly executed destructo-puzzles. Like if your Sudoko board exploded in your face when you completed it.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Much like racing games, I usually don't play military games, as I don't do to well with the one shot, one kill mode of play. I need at least 4 or 5 shots before I figure out who's shooting me. Another 3 or 4 so I can bring my weapon around, and another 10 - 15 so that I aim, fire, and have any hope of bringing down my assailant. My understanding is that, on the battlefield, they don't usually extend you that level of courtesy. When I bought my 360, I played Call of Duty 2 and absolutely loved it, in part because even if you had just taken a few rounds in the old noggin, you could just take a nap under an overturned fruit cart and come out right as rain. I'm assuming this won't be the case in GRAW, but I'll be looking for fruit carts just in case.

I'm buying this game mostly because every single person I game with is buying it, even those without 360's, and I want a game that we can all dick around with on a Friday night, exploring maps, and having Andy lob grenades in unorthodox ways. It is also a damn pretty game with tons and tons of things happening on the screen at the same time, 90% of which I'll be ignoring as I try to figure out just how the hell someone is shooting me when I'm hidden under my fruit cart. I think it's kind of strange that when the Gulf War was happening, some people called it a video game kind of war, because most of the 'fighting' was conducted so remotely and now we have a video game title that is supposed to be a realistic depiction of future warfighting (if that's at all possible) and the realism looks like a video game. I know that doesn't make sense, but in my head I know exactly what I'm talking about. My garbage can tells me everything I need to know.

Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
It's been so long since I played a RPG, that I've completely forgotten how to cast a proper fireball. I think that the last RPG I played was X-Men Legends 2, but that was so watered down in it's RPG-ness that it hardly qualifies. The Elder Scrolls series can never be accused of being watered down in that respect as there are combinations of skills and traits that I'm sure the developers never even thought of. I played Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind on my PC, but between the pace of the game being slow, and the travel in the game being painfully slow, I never finished it. Plus, the skill progression model was kind of weird, and I tried to make my own, custom Jedi class, and well, lets just say I have no business making Jedi and leave it at that.

From what I've read, some of the pacing has been ramped up, as has foot travel, and you can get horses which should help things immensely. Any time you can procure livestock in a game, it's a time to celebrate. The game looks pretty damn good, however I'm sure you'll be able to fix a sandwich, or build a small shanty in the time it takes a level to load, but as long as I'm prepared for such things, I'll be OK. This time, I'll try to stick to more prepacked character classes, lest we repeat the mistakes of Morrowind and I end up with someone who can run fast and make potions, but can't swing a weapon any larger than a breadstick. The game boasts a length of 200 hours should you do all the side quests, and the glittering promise of downloadable content could conceivably extend the life of this title until the stars wink out and die. We'll see if it holds my interest that long as my attention span is somewhat on the short si-- ooh! Pretty sparkly things!

Metroid Prime: Hunters
My motivations for buying a DS were equal parts Nintendogs and equal parts Metroid Prime: Hunters which makes me equal parts nerd and equal parts 8 year old girl. The first time I played this game, or the demo version of it anyways, I was unconvinced of the ability to control an FPS with a touchscreen, and as a result, I had relegated the DS into the realm of the unpurchaseable. When I finally relented, for Nintendogs and Advance Wars DS, and I played the Metroid demo with the thumb-nubbin thingy, instead of the stylus, it all fell into place. The Metroid Prime: First Hunt demo was an interesting little game, but it's so far removed from what Hunters is going to be, that I think it was Nintendo's way of saying "Relax. It isn't going to be all puppy dogs and big headed animal people."

The game looks extremely well realized now and I, for one, can not wait. 6 playable bounty hunters other than Samus, a bunch of different multiplayer modes and a single player campaign? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! The only thing that I can do without is the voice chat option. The only way I can tolerate sharing this planet with other people is by reminding myself that I only need communicate with around 1 billionth of them on a daily basis. The anonyminity that the intra-web provides gives people license to act like smacktards, and I can't be having their foul magiks tainting my DS. He's just a little console, and I don't need him hearing such language. The lack of voice in Mario Kart online is what makes me able to race against the unwashed masses and not wish to hurl myself off of a building. I'm hoping I can just turn the voice chat option off.

The only problem is that I'm smack in the throes of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and I fear that switching to another DS game will kill my momentum and I won't finish the blasted thing, which is a shame, because it's a lot of fun. Oh willpower, do not leave me now, when I need thee the most!

Add to these game purchases, my intentions of purchasing "A History of Violence" and the first season of "Justice League" and we have an expensive month. Oblivion has been paid for since last summer, and I sold off all of my other Xbox and 360 games to pay for the new ones, but it still hurts me in ye olde wallet. Thankfully, other than Top Spin dropping in April, Microsoft has conspired to keep games off of the 360 release calendar for what appears to be the remainder of the year. Thanks Microsoft, you're the best!

Change of Plans

I decided to reschedule the surgery as I'm not comfortable being carved up on my best day, and I would hardly count any of the days since Sunday as one of my best. Thanks for those that wished me luck. I appreciate it, and rest assured, the threat of my reproducing will be halted in due time. As I'm not preparing to get cut on, and I don't have a whole bunch to do at the moment, I think I owe you several posts. Lets do gaming because it requires the least amount of effort. Ahh, it's good to be back.

If Beating Hobos Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right

Here's the sad truth. When I heard that Condemned: Criminal Origins was a game that pit you in hand to hand combat against deranged vagrants, I wanted in. I didn't care about the story. I didn't care about the forensic investigations you could undertake in the game. I just wanted to watch some junkie run in the room, rip a pipe off the wall, and then step up and get a face full of locker door. I don't know why this is. I have nothing against the homeless, or drug addicts for that matter, and I certainly wouldn't think to try and bash one over the head with a sledgehammer in real life, but for some reason, the concept in the game intrigued me.

I'm not going to spend too much time on the story, as it quickly becomes incomprehensible, and the ending doesn't do much to help, other than set up a sequel. You're an FBI agent who is investigating a serial killer who likes to kill his victims and place them in little window display type situations with mannequins. While investigating his latest crime, you give chase to the suspect, get the crap kicked out of you and watch as said suspect kills two cops with your gun. The cops now think you've killed two of their own so it's up to you, your wits, your last contact at the FBI's crime lab, and whatever blunt object you can get your hands on, to find out what's going on. Meanwhile all the homeless people and drug addicts have gone crazy and have taken to beating on each other with pipes. There are also a lot of dead birds. Oh, and you have visions. Don't worry, I didn't understand it either.

Condemned, despite the rather convoluted story, does one thing very well. That one thing is stick you in a very creepy environment and lead you by the nose into situations that make you crap your pants in fear. I say "lead you by the nose" because as large and impressive as the environments look, your path is a linear one. There is limited use for backtracking, except to return to a door that was previously unopenable, or for returning to pick up a weapon that had been found and then discarded. Usually, I'm not a big fan of forcing the player to go certain ways, but given all the weirdos running around this game, I was more than happy to be led down a particular path.

The developers did an excellent job of combining light, shadow and ambient sound effects to create a mood of dread and impending violence. As you travel through the various levels, you'll hear the far off coughing of someone you may or may not meet up with later on, or you'll see a hanging light start swinging as someone moves through the ceiling. The game doesn't rely on gimmicks like Doom 3's stupid flashlight (you can hold a flashlight and a weapon at the same time) or monster closets, so the feelings of fear are genuine.

The only gimmicky thing, in my opinion, is the way that guns and ammo are handled. Melee weapons abound, and provide a nice selection of hitty things, but firearms are a little harder to come by. This I understand, however what I don't get is why you can have a shotgun, then find another shotgun and not be able to reload with the ammo from the new weapon. I mean, this guy's an FBI agent, I think he'd be able to take the shells from one gun and place them in an another gun. I understand that this makes players make decisions as to whether they should try and backtrack to pick up the gun with one shell, once the current one is out of ammo, but seeing how I never saw enemies respawn, the decision becomes one of time, and not one of risk, so even that doesn't make sense. I also wasn't thrilled with only being able to carry one weapon at a time. Your agent carries an entire CSI crime lab in his backpack, including a DNA analyzer that's bigger than most firearms in the game, but there's no room in there for a revolver? Riiiiiight. I can understand not wanting the player to be able to tote firearms around all willy-nilly, but inconsistencies like this bug me.

Combat is handled pretty well. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of melee weapons to choose from. Some smaller, lighter things like the 2x4 don't do as much damage, but can be swung much more quickly. Heavier items like the sledgehammer and the fireaxe pack a punch, but if you miss, you'll be taking the Trolley to Trauma Town as your opponent smacks you repeatedly until you can swing again. The best weapons though, come from what I call the Picture class. This includes signs, desktops, locker drawers and large planks. Their class name comes from the fact that, when using these weapons, one of the animations for hitting your opponent has you bringing the weapon down on the top of your opponent's head, as if you were trying to break a picture over their melon, a la the Three Stooges. Classic. As the game progresses, you can find some interesting weapons like mannequin arms, paper cutter blades and flaming boards. Whoever had the job of designing all the melee weapons had a field day with this one. You also have a taser, which allows you to stun your opponent and either steal their weapon, or get a free hit, but those of you that rely on the taser throughout the entire game and don't develop your melee skills sufficiently will find themselves less than prepared for the ending. I speak from experience. You've been warned.

Health kits are all over the place, which is odd, given the environments you're in, but I guess deranged hobos need first aid too. This kind of inconsistency should also bug me, but after you've been mauled by 3 junkies with pipes, you see how much complaining you do about stumbling across some Tylenol.

The graphics are great, except for the character models used in the cutscenes. I'm not sure why there's a difference between the in-engine models for the cutscenes and the ones used in combat, but there seemed to be one to me, and not in a good way. Maybe it's because combat is very fast, in poorly lit corridors, so I'm not paying attention to the character models, and I am in the movies, but the models in the movies looked very short and squatty, and somewhat plastic-y to boot. The models in the game, on the other hand, are very well done, with a lot of variety which gets creepier and creepier as the game unfolds.

The game clocks in at around 10 - 12 hours, but would be longer if you found every dead bird and every metal piece in all of the levels. For me, this is the right length for a horror game. Despite enjoying it very much, I never finished Resident Evil 4, a fact that I'm sure will get my Geek card revoked. After having played it for 20 hours and knowing that I still had to battle back through the zombie village, fight 2 ogre thingies at once and go through the army base thing, I just couldn't take it any more. Plus, the President's daughter was just way too annoying. I like to think that Leon escaped to Amsterdam and spends his time blitzed out of his mind on hash brownies. Being scared while playing a game is an exhausting endeavor and after a while it gets to be too much. 10 hours may be a bit short to expect from a 60 buck game, but it's such a fun experience while you're playing it, it's worth the price. Besides, what else are you going to play on your 360? Oh snap.

As I mentioned before, the story doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense, and there is a choice to make at the end that would give the appearance of alternate endings, but all it does is determine which achievement is unlocked. Some folks that I know were pissed at the ending, but I was OK with it. It may be because I was expecting something much worse, given how irritated they were. You're certainly not going to get any closure, but hopefully we'll get another game to help answer our questions. There are a fair number of achievements ranging from simply completing a chapter to using only melee weapons, to using every melee weapon, a daunting task, as some weapons will escape your notice if you're not careful. I managed to unlock the achievement for using every firearm for I am a scared little bitch who likes to hid behind his boomstick. If they had a Tasered And Ran achievement I would have unlocked that too.

If you like horror games, and you have a 360, your options are fairly limited. Granted, Perfect Dark Zero is a pretty scary piece of programming, but not for the same reasons, so Condemned is it. Despite the games niggling problems, you could do a hell of a lot worse than popping this one in the tray and spending the night introducing the riff raff to Mr. Pipey.

Apologies For Not Posting

I apologize for the lack of a post yesterday and for the lack of an explanation for the lack of a post. Late Sunday night, my stomach decided it no longer wanted to be my body's main food receptacle. Discussions went well through the day yesterday and at this point I'm happy to say that we've reached in agreement. My stomach has been given a small measure of autonomy and half of my pancreas. I, in turn, get to not starve to death.

Given that I'm still not at 100% and I have my surgery on Thursday, possibly making me in a non-posting mood for Friday, I think we'll just call this week a loss and move on. If I feel up to it, I'll continue our journey through the wild world of color tomorrow, but don't hold your breath.

On the plus side, I'm catching up on season 3 of Buffy, when I can stay awake through them. Seth Green is a revelation.

Things To Do Before I Die

No cheeky kid stories today folks. They've been a generally cranky lot this week, which isn't any fun living through once, much less reliving through the magic of the written word.

I'm in a list kind of mood today, as it resolves me of the responsibilty of crafting a coherent narrative. I've been keeping a mental note of things that I want to make sure I do before I make my grand exit, and its high time that I put it down somewhere so that I can refer to it in the past. This will also help you, dear reader, in determining if my life was even remotely successful once you hear of my eventual passing. I'll try to put these points in my will so that my success or failure in accomplishing each one can be passed on to whoever writes my obituary. I'm sure this list will grow with time as I can't go a day without thinking of some stupid ass thing or another. That being said, lets get started.

Uppercut a Punkass
Yes, I did steal this idea from Dane Cook, but it's a good idea and I too want to do it. The world falls into two groups of people, those that stand by and put up with punkasses, and those that refuse to take such abuse and instead uppercut them into nearby refreshment laden tables. I guess that would be three groups as we have to include the punkasses in there somewhere, unless you have punkasses who are willing to uppercut other punkasses. At any rate, I'd like to think that if the situation presented itself, either at a party, or perhaps the junior high Valentines Day Dance, and a punkass was going about his punkassy ways, I would unleash an uppercut that would send him flying into the snack table. If it were at a party, I would also like the opportunity to knock him into the pool. If I'm at a farm, the pig pen is an appropriate post-uppercut, punkass receptacle.

Kick Someone Through a Window
Similar to the above point, but not necessarily limited to punkasses, I would like the chance to karate kick someone with such force that they leave the earth, and crash through a window before eventually returning to the ground. For maximum effect, I would like there to be a water trough under the window, or a fruit display. Perhaps I'm at the grocery store, and someone butts in line at the express lane. I speak to the gentleman calmly and ask him to take his place behind me, and rather than try and have a civilized discourse, he instead resorts to violence. I then proceed to beat his sorry ass to the point where he is barely conscious and standing, but wobbling while doing so. Time would slow and with either a viscious roundhouse, or a mid-air spinning kick, he would go crashing through the window. The store would then erupt in applause and an old lady, who had previously been accosted by my defeated opponent, would hit him with her umbrella as she exited the store.

Rap the Bridge in a Pop/R&B Song
We've all been listening to a pop song on the radio, and just when we've had our fill, here comes the smooth lyrical acrobatics of the latest rap star du jour. A well rapped bridge can elevate a song from mediocrity to genius in 6 or 7 well crafted lines. I would like to be the source of that elevation. I would resume using the moniker MC Whiteboy from my college rap show days and find my partner in rhyme, a one DJ Shag. He was going to school for chemical engineering or some shit, so I'm sure he'd be more than happy to ditch his six figure salary to engineer some chemicals of the lyrical sort. We would use this opportunity to get ourselves known, and then drop our first single "You Da Man? No, I'm The Man", in which we apologize to the world for all of the asshole things done in the name of white people in the past. We would use our new fame to drop a mix of social consciousness and rhymes thicker than your Grandma's gravy. Eventually I would meet Mos Def and he and I would go out to lunch on occasion, and possibly take in a movie. If you are an aspiring pop/r&b song and you think that your latest single is missing something, send it to me and I will add to it in ways that only a 33 year old white guy can.

Appear in a Rock Video, In Front of a Wall of Video
Some images persist in music videos because of laziness on the creator's part, but some images persist because they work. We've all seen the video of the band rocking out in a darkened room, and as the song builds to it's thunderous conclusion, the room becomes alive with light and color as a wall of video turns on and is filled with pulsating images. We are then left with the sight of the band's frontman as the images move behind him. Think the video for "Be Yourself" by Audioslave. I would like to be that frontman. I realize that I don't have a band, mostly because I can't sing, but the lack of singing ability doesn't appear to hold back musicians these days. I could just say that you just don't "get" my inability to carry a note, that I'm being post-modern in how I'm completely tone deaf. It doesn't matter. What matters is getting that video wall fired up as I gyrate, microphone in hand, to my band's massive rock output. In fact, I think that I've just come up with my band's name: Massive Rock Output. If there's a band out there that needs a frontman to appear in their videos, please don't hesitate to call. I also do Bar Mitzvahs.

Jump Out of a Plane
This next one is actually doable, and I've spoken to the missus about it, but she is less than thrilled. I appear to have grown on her over the years and she prefers to not have me in a form that requires a shovel and a bucket just to bring me from room to room. There's also the children to think of, as if I perish in a parachute mishap, I don't think my life insurance will kick in. That, and I would be forcing my wife to deal with those little hellbeasts on her own and she'd never forgive me for that. I need to find a skydiving firm that will take your shattered remains and toss them off of your roof, complete with strategically placed ladder, to give the appearance that I tumbled while cleaning gutters. The goggles and helmet would be completely understandable, as gutters are a popular vacation home for squirrels and those fuckers go for the eyes.

Reveal My Powers in a Case of Mistaken Criminal Identity
As this is the year I've resolved to get super powers, I think it's only right to have them come about as the police suspect me of criminal mischief that I had no part in. Perhaps I could, in the middle of a large city, go to help some poor citizen that had been a victim of some sort of illegal shenanigans. Perhaps I'm handling a weapon that was dropped at the scene, or I'm pulling a tire iron out of the citizen's head. The police then make a snap judgement and unleash a volley of bullets at my person. This is when my powers kick in, and I repel the bullets in some superheroic fashion. I would then turn to the police and say something like, "That was a spectacularly bad idea" and fling them asunder before streaking off into the sky and turning my powers to evil, to punish a world that would mistakenly wrong me. I've left the terms of the repelling, the flinging and the streaking general to accompany a variety of powers. I don't want to pigeonhole myself, should I want to be either a powerful telekinetic or be bathed in living flame.

Retire Early
There were some very interesting articles in the Feb 16th issue of The Economist on managing the ageing workforce. Basically, if all of the boomers retire at the same time, we're all going to hell in a handbasket because there will be more people leaving the workforce than entering. Also, not all of the boomers want to retire, but they're being forced to, due to outdated pension schemes and the incorrect assumption that older people can't be productive workers. Personally, I fucking hate working, so if there's a boomer out there that wants to keep working, I'm more than happy to take their place and retire early. More tee times for me.

As I mentioned before, I will continue to work on this list so that I can keep track of how my life is progressing. In a perfect world, I could knock some of these out at once, however the odds of my superpowers kicking in due to a parachute failure as I plummet while composing my rap bridge are somewhat on the low side. Fingers crossed.

A Post of a Different Color

Greetings Science Squaddies! Man have we hit the motherload this week! This is the joyous thing about science, asking questions provides answers, but it also provides more questions. I've always had an interest in color. The fact that there are soooooo many colors in the universe amazes me. Just walking around and taking note of all of the different colors that we see from day to day can be an eye opening experience, excuse the pun. When I see all of the colors, I then begin to think about the fact that in order for things to be different colors, there has to be an inherent structural difference to account for these colors. Then I start to get freaked out and I have to stop. Sometimes, being me is an odd experience.

So, when I had a hard time coming up with this week's post, I thought it'd be simple and I'll just write about what makes things different colors. As it turns out, that isn't a simple answer. When is it ever, right? As usual, the little sliver of knowledge I have on the subject is but a splinter compared to the great tree of ignorance currently growing on my intellectual property. That being the case, I think that we should take this journey together, me and you, and turn this into a series of posts. Come on, it'll be fun! Honest it will. All righty then, here we go:

What determines an object's color? (Or, why is the world a many colored thing?)

Today we'll lay the ground work before we get into the nitty and the gritty, there being a fair amount of both. Before we talk about color, we have to talk about light, because without light, there's no color, hence the difficulty one has when trying to read when sealed in a closet.

The interesting thing about color is that color is a human perception of a characteristic of light, namely its wavelength. We see the large wavelength part of the visible spectrum (the range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that we can see) as being red. If our eyes developed differently, we'd see that portion of the spectrum differently, and it wouldn't be red any more. It's all very odd when you think about it. The spectrum goes from red down to blue, with red having the largest wavelength, and lowest frequency, and blue having the smallest wavelength and the highest frequency.

The simple reason that things are different colors, is because the light (for our purposes, I'm going to replace the words "electromagnetic radiation" with "light" as I am uncomfortable with the thought that I'm being constantly irradiated) coming from said object, and into your eye, has a specific wavelength and frequency that then gets interpreted by your brain as being red or blue or periwinkle. Of course, that's not much of an answer, as it doesn't really get to why light coming off of an object would be different in the first place.

As it turns out, there are 15 causes of color, that can be grouped into 5 groups. These groups are:

• Vibrations and excitations
• Ligand field effect
• Molecular orbitals
• Energy bands
• Optics

As you can see, we have a lot of ground to cover, and this doesn't even get into how and why color affects us emotionally, color theory in art, the science or measuring and reproducing color, and on and on and on. Oh the places we'll go!

For now, I think this is a good place to stop. Always leave 'em wanting more, I say. Plus, my kid is home sick, so I need to tend to her, and she doesn't take kindly to being ignored when she's perfectly healthy, much less when she's stricken with baby malaise.

Next week: I'm So Excited, And I Am Having Difficulty Hiding It

Sources:
Wikipedia - Color
Web Exhibits - Causes of Color
The Franklin Institute Online - Light and Color
The Physics Hypertextbook - Color

Web Comics

This post was supposed to be about Condemned: Criminal Origins, but I'm not finished with it yet despite having served up a steaming platter of beat down to dozens of homicidal vagrants. I can tell you that using a locker door to dispatch a crazed hobo is a gaming moment like no other. Once I realized that Condemned was out of the question, and that I had no back-up ideas planned, I thought I'd write about the state of the 360 at the moment. The draft I cooked up in my head amounted to nothing but a bunch of whining, so I need some more time with that one. Instead I think I'll point out the webcomics that I visit daily. Most of them have to do with gaming, and all of their bookmarks reside in my gaming bookmarks folder, so there is some sort of connection.

Before we get started I'd like to point out my new profile picture courtesy of the fine folks at Yahoo, specifically the Avatar individuals. As the picture in the profile box is kind of small, I have reproduced it here for your pleasure. This is as good a cartoon approximation of my looks as I have ever seen. In fact, I am wearing a brown sweatshirt as I write this, although I am in a stifling office complex, not the crisp, leafy air of autumn. I do own a grill, and a gasser at that, which I am more than happy to fire up after a long day of raking. I don't actually rake, as I use my ride-on mower to pick up leaves, but that wasn't an option in the avatar generator. I also do not have a pet pig, as much as I might wish to, however I have provided one for my cartoon counterpart so that, after he finishes raking, he can grill up the pig and eat it. Special thanks to Andy for helping me in getting my profile to show. He is truly a god among men.

Some of the comics I'm going to link to are episodic, so you would be well served to go back and read them from the beginning. If this task seems daunting, have no fear, as you need not be afraid, unless you are comedyphobic. Some of the comics are standalone, so going back to the beginning will only provide you with something to do while you wait for your TPS cover sheet to print. I will link you to the main page, with the most recent comic and let you decide if you wish to travel back in time from there. At that point, it's all you, baby. Now, let us make with the clicking.

Penny Arcade - I've spoken about these gentlemen before and I stand by my original assertment that if I could only read one webcomic, this would be it. It is primarily standalone, although they do dabble in continuity when the mood strikes them. It is primarily about gaming, although they aren't afraid to go well off the beaten track to areas that probably should have been left to the imagination. Each comic comes with a tasty news post, which is always very well written and chock full of 50 cent words. By this, I mean big words, not words from the raps of 50 Cent, although sometimes the two worlds do collide. The comic strip and newspost archives are fully searchable, in case you want to point someone to a particular strip. The art is great, the writing is great, and they post on a regular M-W-F schedule, so you're, at most, only a couple of days away from new hilarity, whatever day of the week you find yourself on. They also run a very successful charity to provide sick children with toys and video games, so even if the comic isn't your thing, the charity damn well should be. The strip is not for the kiddies as violence, profanity and strong sexual situations abound.

PVP - This strip is the closest thing to a newspaper strip, in terms of structure, that I read online. I still read the comics in the paper, it being a high point of my evening, but I prefer my online strips to better make use of the medium, be it in content or style. That being said, this is a very entertaining strip, which you can recommend to fellow gamers that aren't comfortable with the more adult nature of some of the other strips. The strip focuses on the wacky hijinks of a bunch of employees at a gaming magazine. The art is good, the writing is good, albeit sometimes very gaming and pop-culture heavy (a common thread here) and sometimes Kurtz's rants can be fun to read. The Blamimation "Live" strips are particularly hilarious as it's Kurtz and his friends trying out various live action readings to the strips. The strips is more along the PG lines with some vague references to sex at some times. The strip publishes daily on the weekdays

Nodwick - Nodwick is all about the Dungeons and Dragons, the title character being a henchman for what is perhaps the most incompetent group of adventurers this side of a d20. If you're not into D&D, or epic fantasy in general, it won't really be for you. If you can put the subject material aside, it's very well drawn and quite funny too. It's usually episodic, accept for times when its creator, Aaron Williams, doesn't have time for a weekly update. Also from Williams is Full Frontal Nerdity which focuses on the gaming activities of 4 tabletop gaming aficianados. I don't always understand the references in this strip, but I enjoy it immensely. Both strips are for everyone, with some mild violence in Nodwick. Both are updated weekly, on Thursday.

Diesel Sweeties - Diesel Sweeties pushes the limits of what MS Paint can do, while being entertaining and off-beat at the same time. It's kind of episodic in that things that happen in the past aren't forgotten by the time the next strip rolls around. It's got robots, and vegans, and mullets and Indie Rock Pete, so there's something for everyone. Sort of. It's very much a take it or leave it kind of strip. I love it, so I can be biased, but I can see why some wouldn't. I'd put it at more on the adult nature of things, just for some of the suggested situations. Well, that and one of the characters used to be a porn star. This strip rarely has anything to do with gaming.

WIGU - Ah Wigu, how I love thee. Wigu is a little boy who, with the aid of his messed up family, and Topato, space potato and star of Magical Adventures in Space, gets into situations that no small child should ever be subjected to. It used to run daily, but Jeffrey Rowland is moving to a more book type format so that he can tell the story in one big, delicious chunk. It is well worth your time to check out the archives. I have a WIGU book, as well as three t-shirts, so I can make that recommendation in earnest.

Overcompensating - Overcompensating is the daily comic blog that Jeffrey Rowland does when he's not creating WIGU and running a t-shirt empire. It's sometimes episodic, sometimes topical and always filled with mirth. Art is quirky, as it is with Wigu, however if you like the style, it doesn't dissapoint. This strip, like Wigu, needs no prior gaming experience to be enjoyed, but he certainly won't fault you for it. Updated (near) daily.

Achewood - If I could only read two webcomics a day, Achewood would be the second one. Achewood revolves around a cast of animals (inspired by author Chris Onstad's stuffed animals) that live in the town of Achewood. The strip mostly focuses on two cats, Ray Smuckles, and Roast Beef, but others make an appearance as well. It can be episodic, but also has standalone strips as well. Art is very simple, but works very well for the type of strip that it is. One thing that Onstad has done, which separates him from the rest of his creative brethren, is create blogs for each of the Achewood characters. This not only fleshes out the characters in ways that the strip can't, but also allows the other characters to have adventures not shown in the strip. The blogs are dead on too, which they should be, given that they're written by the strip's creator. The strip is probably best kept from the kiddies, although I doubt they'd understand most of it anyways. Nary a gaming reference in sight. Updated daily.

Scary Go Round - Scary Go Round is a strip about a bunch of folks in England who seem to have a lot of things of a supernatural bent happen to them. Not sure why, as I haven't investigated the archive as much as I should. The art style is very cool, and the writing is very well done, although I would recommend knowing someone British so that you can have the references translated for you. It is episodic, so a trip to the archives may be in order for at least a few strips back, but most story lines are very easy to pick up. I am totally hot for Shelley. I think it's the red hair. Don't judge me. Strip is safe for folks of all ages and has no gaming prerequisites. Updated daily.

Order of the Stick - OOtS requires interest in, and possibly knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons. I say possibly, because there are some things I vaguely understand and they may be much funnier if you understand them in totality. The strip focuses on a band of adventurers who know that they're in a D&D universe, so references to things like fortitude checks and race/class benefits abound. The art is extremely well done, especially considering that everyone is a stick figure. It's also very well written, although it can be wordy at times. Updated M-W-F and is rated PG for mild, fantasy violence.

VG Cats - VG Cats is the best looking, and least scheduled strip I read. I'm sure that the two are related. It comes out weekly, for the most part, and requires almost an encyclopedic knowledge of games to get all the jokes. There are some weeks that I don't understand any of it, because I haven't played the game that the strip is based on, however the art is pretty enough for me to just enjoy the visuals on those occasions. This strip is not for kids, unless you want your kids to see Pac-Man in uncompromising positions.

Concerned - Concerned is about Gordon Frohman, a complete and total idiot who arrives at City 17 a week before Gordon Freeman, the hero of Half-Life 2. Being that the comic is set in Half-Life 2, some knowledge of the game is required. I started reading the comic before I started playing HL2, and I can attest that the strips, while funny without having played the game, are twice as funny once you can catch all of the references. The strip is created entirely in the game, requiring author Christopher Livingston to pose people in the game, take screen caps and then add dialog and any other after affects. The results are amazing, and the strip is one of the funniest ones out there. Read the notes as you go through the archive (available below the strip) to get some insight into the creative process. Updated M-W-F. Strip has violence as you would see in HL2, so base your desire to share accordingly.

So there you are, some things to read at work while avoiding the tasks they're paying you to do. I can't help but think that somewhere out there is someone paid to read webcomics who slacks off by creating spreadsheets and traceability matrixes. Matrices? Matrixi? Oh hell, grid thingies.

Diagnosing the Sick Toddler

OK people, settle down, settle down. We have a lot to cover in a short amount of time, so let's get right to it. Today's material is on diagnosing the sick toddler. Now, as doctors you'll often have to diagnose people who have a hard time communicating what is wrong with them. This is hard enough as it is, however when you're dealing with a person who is completely removed from the actual happenings of the physical world, the toddler for example, this becomes even more difficult. Also, due to the rambling, stream of consciousness nature of these creatures, often times the maladies will change from moment to moment, making treatment a difficult situation. Let's just jump into some examples so that we can see what works and what doesn't.

Situation 1: Normally cheerful toddler is picked up at daycare, having been crying for no reason for the past hour. Upon calming down said toddler, you are able to ask him what is wrong. His response is "A spider bit me on my finger." OK....Johnson, go.

Johnson: Well, I'd try and find out what spider bit him so that we could call the hospital and prepare an anti-venom, then I'd---

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Stevens, go.

Stevens: I'd inspect the afflicted finger and kiss it to make it better.

Correct. Moving on. Once you get the child calmed down you get him and his sister out to the car. After getting his sister in the car, you try to get to the bottom of what's bothering him. For this exercise, I'll be the toddler and I'd like, let's see, I'd like Davidson to try and diagnose the problem. Davidson, you ready? All right, and...go.

Davidson: So a spider bit you?
Toddler: No. A spider scared me.
Davidson: A spider scared you? Where?
Toddler: On my finger.
Davidson: A spider scared you on your finger?
Toddler: Yes. Miss Frances threw it.
Davidson: Miss Frances threw what?
Toddler: A black spider. Threw it on the ground.
Davidson: Wait. Miss Frances threw a spider on the ground and that scared you?
Toddler: Yes. Ryan drew it.
Davidson: Drew what?
Toddler: A spider
Davidson: Ryan drew a spider? Where? In class?
Toddler: On my eye.
Davidson: I got nothing.

As you can see, the "spider" that bit the child, either didn't exist at all, or not only bit him, but also scared him, got thrown on the ground, and was drawn on his eye. This then expands the diagnosis from a simple spider bite to possible retinal scratching and/or detachment, pyschological trauma manifesting in arachnaphobic tendencies and possible blunt trauma to the spider. In this case, it was determined, upon getting home, that the child had a fever. He was given a bath and put to bed. Upon waking the next morning he was fine.

All right, next case, same child, next day. Child, who normally sleeps very soundly wakes up crying. Child request dinosaur from downstairs. Possible diagnoses people? Anyone? Come on folks, this isn't hard. OK, it's Friday, so I'll let you slide. Possible diagnoses include, but are not limited to: nightmares, full bladder/bowels, empty bladder/bowels, hunger, a stiff wind, it being Tuesday, ear ache, stomach ache, foot ache, male pattern baldness, pain, suffering, lost wages. Treatment? Harris?

Harris: Go downstairs and get the dinosaur?

Jesus, Harris, don't ever have kids. No, remember, it's late and you're tired. Franklin?

Franklin: Tell him he's not going downstairs to get his goddamned dinosaur, that it's late and that he needs to go to sleep.

Bingo. Franklin, you just won Father of the Year. One hour later, child again cries for dinosaur. This time he complains of ear pain. Diagnoses? Mr. Chung?

Chung: Um, tennis elbow?

Normally I'd say yes. Had you asked him if his ear hurt, in an attempt to figure out the source of irritation, and he answered yes, tennis elbow would be a viable possibility. However given that this statement was unsolicited, we can assume that his ear pain is genunine. A subsequent trip to the doctor would prove an ear infection was to blame.

OK, next morning, child is again crying. Again, let's roleplay. Andrews you're up.

Toddler: Waaah.
Andrews: Does your ear hurt?
Toddler: Yes.
Andrews: Does anything else hurt?
Toddler: My face.
Andrews: Your face hurts?
Toddler: Yes.
Andrews: What happened to your face?
Toddler: Wall hit it.
Andrews: The wall hit it?
Toddler: Yes.
Andrews: You've been in bed all night? How could the wall have hit your face?
Toddler: Waaah.

OK, Andrews, what's the diagnoses? What? Misplaced facial pain as a result of the ear infection? Close, but not quite right. The correct answer is "spider bite".

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

OK, one thing I should point out is that economics is really fucking hard. I thought that chemistry was hard, but economics makes chemistry look like making balloon animals. Then again, I don't know how to make balloon animals either, so perhaps I'm unqualified to make statements comparing those three sciences. Let's just say that they all represent a near infinite level of difficulty, and leave it at that.

So, when I decided that this week's science post would be about bubbles, particularly housing bubbles, I forgot that housing bubbles means economics, which is the section of The Economist that I skip every week. Yes, I realize the irony inherent in my skipping the economics section of The Economist. I'm not particularly proud of my skipping, but I'm taking it one article at a time. That being said, I can't guarantee that this post will be overwhelmingly educational, as I'm still learning myself and I may have to sacrifice providing a wealth of information for clarity. Don't get me wrong, it will still be educational, just not overwhelmingly so. It will be just the right amount of whelming.

Without further ado, here's the question of the week:

What is a housing bubble?

In economic terms, a bubble occurs when speculation in a particular commodity drives the price of said commodity up to unsustainable levels. In real life, bubbles are floating faerie houses made of moonbeams and pixie dust. Let's say you make a candy bar called the Fudgemeister. You go online and talk up Fudgemeister bars and somehow manage to convince the world that Fudgemeister bars are the greatest thing ever, so everyone goes out and starts buying Fudgemeister bars as they see them holding some future value. To capitalize on this success, you make limited edition Fudgemeister bars, and start printing a magazine called Fudgemeister Monthly. As a result, the price of Fudgemeister bars go up, which makes people talk about it more and worry more about them not being around, so they go out and buy more Fudgemeister bars and hoarding them in their basement to sell at a future date. Eventually someone realizes how fucking stupid they're being by thinking they can fund their retirement with candy, and they stop paying inflated prices for Fudgemeister bars. This sets off a panic, people start selling off their bars and soon you can't swing a dead cat without seeing a 3 for 1 sale on Fudgemeister bars at the local drug store. Those still holding massive quantities of bars see their fudgy worth go down the toilet, they come to your house and beat you about the head and neck with King Size Fudgemeisters. This then goes down in history as the Fudgemeister Bubble and the Great Candy Crash of '06.

Sound familiar? Well, it should. It happened with Tulips in the Netherlands in 1636, it happened with dot-com stocks in the US in 2000 and some would say it's happening with real estate, specifically houses, in the US and other countries as we speak. Bubbles are tricky things in that you don't know you're in one until after it pops and whatever you've been speculating on crashes. For this reason, we can't really say if we're in a housing bubble at the moment, although there are plenty of people on both sides to give their opinions.

A housing bubble is just like our Fudgemeister Bubble. People start overvaluing houses, which in turn fuels more overvaluing until the point where house prices reach unsustainable levels. Here's where it gets bad. Unlike in the Great Candy Crash, where speculators are left with a basement full of candy, and not much else to show for it, when a housing bubble bursts, people are left with negative equity on their mortgage. To place this in plainer terms, you owe more on your house than your house is worth. This is a bad thing.

As the economy sputtered along these past few years and the Federal Reserve continued to reduce interest rates, mortgage interest rates fell as a result, making it easier for people to borrow large amounts of cash for buying a house. Mortgage companies then "helped" people some more by offering interest only loans, or loans for 105% of the purchase price, to cover closing costs, and other incentives to get people buying houses. Armed with this cash, folks can now buy more house than they ever could before, only they're not necessarily buying more house, just a more expensive house.

House prices are traditionally set based on what houses in the same neighborhood, with the same features have sold for. Once one sells for a ridiculously high price, others have precedence to be sold for a ridiculously high price. Human nature also pays a part in this, as people don't want to sell their house for less than the next guy, especially if they can get much more than what their house is worth. On the other side, folks don't want to be outbid on a house, so they jack their offer up to match whatever they think the other buyers will be offering. Besides, their interest rate is so low, and they don't have to put any cash down, so why not? After all, in 2 years, the house will be worth double what they paid for it, so they can just refinance then.

You also have all the folks who see houses as an investment, either as a reaction to seeing gains in stocks wiped out after the dot-com crash, or as a reaction to seeing their neighbor make 50k on a house that they owned for only a year. Take a look at the various home and garden tv networks some time and count how many shows are built on the premise of fixing up a house for the purpose of selling it. I can tell you that the number is more than 2. These investments serve to push the prices of houses up and up and up and up to the point where they become overvalued.

How do we know they're overvalued? There are a number of factors, but the only one I somewhat understand is the ratio of house prices to rents. To quote The Economist, "...the price of a house should reflect the future benefits of ownership, either as rental income for an investor or the rent saved by an owner-occupier." In other words, if you're paying $600,000 for a house, you should either a) be able to rent that house for an amount that matches the montly mortgage amount or b) be able to pay a monthly mortgage that represents a savings over what you were paying in rent. For the most part, this ain't happening. Again, from The Economist, "America's ratio of prices to rents is 35% above its average level during 1975-2000". This points to overvaluation, because there is no financial savings to owning rather than renting. The housing investors are willing to accept this temporary loss, by renting our their investment property, for the hint of future profits, which is a sure sign that speculation is taking place.

There are counters to this argument, however I barely understand this argument, so forgive me if I don't get into what the counter is, but it has to do with the fact that lower interest rates makes it easier to buy a house, so it costs less than before to buy your McMansion, so it only makes sense that the price of houses is so much larger than rents. I've included opposing arguments in the reference section, so please don't take just my word for it.

I can tell you from personal experience that there are some crazy regional shenanigans going on, that, in my opinion, need to be fixed with some sort of market correction, lest we all plummet into economic despair. We bought our first house in Northern VA., in October of 1999. A little over 5 years later, in Feb of 05, we sold it for roughly 2.25 times what we paid for it. That's a pretty significant appreciation rate. Granted, we painted, added a deck and a fence, finished the basement and did some landscaping, but none of those additions can account for the rise in price. Part of the reason we decided to sell, was that we could no longer afford our own home. Don't get me wrong, we could make our mortgage payments, but if we were to buy our house, for the price we sold it for, our mortgage would have been through the roof, and beyond what we were comfortable paying. Not much of a big deal had we decided to stay put, but what if we decided we wanted something larger, or just something different? In the 5 years of ownership, the area got priced out of our income range. How first time home buyers, like us, could afford such ridiculous prices, is beyond me. See mortgages, 105%.

And the prices are ridiculous. I know what my house was worth, and I feel like I cheated the buyers out of a huge bundle of money because of where we priced it. But, human nature being what it is, had we priced it significantly lower, it would have been avoided because people would have wondered what was wrong with it.

Now, compare that experience with what we have in Atlanta, and you can see the argument for there being small, regional bubbles, rather than a large US wide bubble. Most houses here take several months to sell, and seem to be pretty much on point with what I would expect to pay. I know how much the seller of our current house paid, and I know how much we paid, and I don't feel like we got cheated. They were jerks, but that's another story for another time. Similarly, I don't expect to be able to sell my house for double in 5 years, which is just fine with me. Maybe new houses are ridiculously overpriced. I have no idea.

Regardless of whether or not it's a case of regional bubbles, or a large US bubble, a crash would be bad news for a bunch of people. All the housing investors would now have property that they won't make a profit on. All the people with negative equity will have a hard time getting additional equity should the roof on their $800,000 house spring a leak, because of the negative mortgage equity. If interest rates go up, all those with interest only ARM's will feel the pinch once they go from an interest only 5.25% mortgage to an interest + principal 8% mortgage on a house they could barely afford in the first place. The private sector jobs wrapped up in construction, real estate, mortgage brokering and other aspects of buying, selling and owning a house will dry up. People, who have to move will find themselves selling their house and not taking enough, if anything, from the sale to put towards the next house. Finally, people will spend less in general, because that new 42" plasma TV seems less important when you have a $650k mortgage on a house valued at $300k. The only people who would benefit, would be first time buyers who would be able to finally afford a house that's priced near or at the home's value, and who are willing to stay in it for 5 - 6 years, until the whole stupid process gets going again.

Me, I'm happy with having sold our house when we could benefit from this bubble, and am more than happy to hoard my cash for when it eventually bursts. Besides, I've got an inside tip on these candy bars. Trust me. I have seen the future, and it is Fudgemeisters.

Next week: No Idea, but Man Will It Be Good

Sources:
Wikipedia - Economic Bubble
Wikipedia - US Housing Bubble
Wikipedia - The Housing Bubble
Investor Elite.com - Housing Bubble
Economy.com - U.S. Bubble Trouble - Celia Chen
The Economist - In Come the Waves, June 16th, 2005 (requires subscription)

Follow Freeman!

I finished Half-Life 2 on the Xbox the other night and boy, did it suck. Half-Life 2, the game, didn't suck, but finishing Half-Life 2 did, and not in a "man this ending sucked" kind of way, but more of a "there's a gaping hole in my existance where this game and our special moments together used to be. What kind of cruel God would provide me with such a fantastic gaming experience and not make it last forever and ever and ever and ever until the galaxy collapsed upon itself?" kind of way. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for the original Half-Life, maybe I'm just generally irritated with the offerings on the 360, or maybe, just maybe, it's geniuinely a very good game and I'm just calling it like it is.

For some reason, despite it being 6 years since the original Half-Life came out and won every gaming award ever created, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize, the NBA Rookie of the Year award and the Blue Ribbon in the Ohio State Fair Pie Eating contest, developers seem to be unable to tell a coherent story in a shooter. I don't really know why. One would think that they could just play Half-Life and get some good ideas there, but maybe they're not allowed to. I can see some contentious design meetings if all everyone says is "make it like Half-Life", but still, at least try and take some good ideas away from the game.

What Half-Life did, and Half-Life 2 does, better than any shooter I've ever played, is place the player directly in the story. There are no cinematics to fill in the background details, no in-engine movies showing our hero running around and figuring things out. There is you, your eyes, your ears and your actions. The entire story unfolds around you, and because of you, as you play the game. Now, as a result, that leaves some details less fleshed out than others, but when, in life, do we ever have all of the answers? Exactly. I can see there being the temptation to want to show external events through cut scenes or other form of exposition, but by sticking to the idea that if you don't see it or hear about it, you don't know about it, it keeps the player firmly entrenched in the story.

Of course, if the story sucks, this ain't such a good thing, but in this case, the story is quite good. At the end of the original Half-Life, you were given a choice by the mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man rip-off guy to either go with him and do things, or, um, you know, don't. It's been 6 years since I played the original, so the ending is a little fuzzy. Half-Life 2 starts up with your choice having been made for you. You're on a train, heading to the very oppressive City 17 which, like all of the other cities of Earth, have been taken over by the Combine, a race of aliens who have only our best interests at heart, as long as you count total subjugation as one of our best interests. In these situations, what's a theoretical physicist to do but jump in his enviromental suit, pick up some firearms and free humanity from alien oppression? As interesting as it would be to watch Feeman work on some physics theorems, or come up with a list for the grocery store, making with the bang-bang is the more fun, if somewhat less realistic choice.

Once you start shooting, you'll be doing a ton of it, and the weapons and enemies provide a nice mix of things to shoot and things to shoot at. The balance of weapons is nice, and while some have a very specific purpose, there's plenty of variety with the others for you to pick a favorite and stick with it. Not content to stick with the usual set of weaponry, Valve added the gravity gun, which allows you to pick up and shoot objects such as paint cans, tables, explosive barrels, massive saw blades, etc. You'll get over the strangeness of seeing explosive barrels all over the place once you pick one up and chuck it into a group of Combine soldiers. Just be sure to actually throw the barrel, rather than use it for cover, as they react rather violently to bullets.

The levels are equally as varied with scary, zombie filled levels, levels piloting air boats and dune buggys, run and gun levels while leading a squad of resistance soldiers and sneak into the enemy base levels. On that last point, every shooter has a point in the game where our plucky hero has to infiltrate the enemy base. Usually the game camera swoops over the fortress, lingering on guards walking across catwalks and sentry points, until it ultimately flies back to our hero who is now supposed to be scared. Or something. I can assure you, that when you make it into the heart of the Combine, the subsequent journey will show you that the enormity of the situation you now face makes the previous time fighting the Combine look like a trip to the Gas & Sip. As I sat there, watching the enemy around me, I found myself thinking "how the hell am I supposed to fight them?"

It's not all perfect, though, primarily because this is a port of a PC game, rather than something created natively for the platform. There are some choppy moments, especially when levels first load, and when battles get particularly heated. This can be annoying, as the reason the battle is so heated is that there are like 9 hojillion people all trying to kill you at the same time, and choppy framerates makes it hard to aim. The level load times are also on the long side, which, based on how the game is split up, can be distracting. On a high-end PC, I'm sure the levels zip along as they load. On the Xbox, well, just pack a lunch and you'll be fine. I can tell you that by the end of the game, either the level loading got better, be it faster or less frequent, or I just got used to it, because it didn't bother me any more.

If you're planning on playing this on the 360, because you sold your Xbox, well, see if you can pick an Oldbox on the cheap, because the emulation sucks. Level load times are significantly longer and there's some very annoying audio and video stuttering, and this was just as I opened up the main menu. After seeing these problems, I didn't even bother any more, but I have read of others having the same problems as the game progressed. There also isn't any multiplayer, however I don't consider that a flaw, as if I'm going to be filled with bullets, I'd like the story to be something other than "Man meets 14 year old. 14 year old shoots man several times. Man quits in digust." The game clocks in around 15 hours, so even if you pay the full 50 that the game dropped for, it's more than worth it to pay what amounts to 3 bucks an hour for an experience of this caliber. Of late, you can get the game for less than 50, so the fun per hour rate climbs through the very-high-o-sphere. The ending can be considered by some as being somewhat anti-climactic, but I enjoyed it, and it sets things up for a Half-Life 3, so bully for them.

It's a shame that this game came out in November of '05 when no one was buying Xbox games in anticipation of the unmitigated joy that would be the 360 experience. Now that said experience has proven to be um, mitigated, there are a lot of people who won't play this game either because a) they sold their Xbox (see emulation, sucky) or b) they didn't know that it dropped and won't think to look for it. Maybe they already played it on the PC, but somehow I doubt that. The only PC game my fellow console aficianodos play is World of Warcraft, and good luck getting them off of that. Your decision making process when it comes to this game, can be summed up in a flow chart of three boxes. Box 1: Do I like shooters? Box 2: Am I alive? Box 3: Am I trapped under something heavy? Answering yes, yes, no is the key to joyous rapture. Anything else provides you with a set of problems I am unable to help you with at this juncture.