The E-Thrizzle

[Special guest post by Phyxie 'cus while Brandon wrote up the content, he forgot to give me Publish rights while he's on vacation. I hope you don't feel like this decreases your enjoyment of his witty repartee any.]

This past week was E3 or the Electronic Entertainment Expo, when all manner of video game creators, journalists and drooling fanboys descend upon Los Angeles to celebrate this crazy industry. This year was particularly interesting as it marked the "official" unveiling of both the Sony PS3 and the Nintendo Wii. People also had a chance to hear about the upcoming plans for Microsoft's gaming endeavors. Having pored over the various articles about the big 3 companies, I will now provide for you, my impressions of how each company fared at E3. Seeing how I wasn't there, and have only the unbiased (ha) opinions of various gaming journalists to rely on, I see this being what can only be referred to as a fruitless exercise. It's either that or a note by note breakdown of "I Love Rock and Roll". Trust me, this is for the best.

Sony
Sony had its press conference first, so they get to go first. Well, they revealed pricing and configuration information on the PS3 and all I can say is, "um, what?". First of all, the lower end model is $499. The higher end model is $599. The difference between the two models is that the lower end has a hard drive that is 40GB smaller, no Wi-Fi out of the box, no memory card readers and no HDMI output. The smaller hard drive isn't a big deal, nor is the lack of Wi-Fi and the lack of a memory card reader. Both of those could be added relatively easily, even if it means a larger footprint. What boggles the mind is the lack of the HDMI output. Here's why. The PS3, both versions, will be a Blu-Ray dvd player. Blu-ray is one of 2 competing Hi-Def DVD formats, and the one created by Sony. Part of the Hi-Def standard is the ability to do copyright protection as part of the signal itself, something handled by HDCP, which is part of the HDMI connection Signals that go through something other than HDMI, or go through a non HDCP compliant HDMI port, will be downsampled to the resolution that current generation DVDs are broadcast at. What that means is that when people purchase a $499 PS3, thinking they're also getting a Blu-Ray player, their Blu-Ray player is essentially crippled. Why Sony would intentionally make a player that does nothing to push their new format forward is beyond me. Now, you can argue that most people don't have tv's with HDMI inputs in them anyways, so it's not a big deal, however if that's the case, then why do we need a new Hi-Def DVD format in the first place. Exactly. Personally, I think both versions are overpriced, but whatever. When Microsoft announced the dual pricing stucture for the 360, I thought it was silly, however there's a very important distinction here. In the case of the 360, you can upgrade the Core system to a Premium system, however it will be at a higher price than if you had just bought the Premium system. In the case of the PS3, unless you're handy with a soldering iron and have access to engineering documents that the rest of us don't, you won't be upgrading your low end PS3 to match the higher end one. That's not silly, that's fracking retarded.

During the presentation they also released that the new wireless PS3 controller will directly take on the Nintendo Wii's motion sensing with, get this, a tilt sensor. Whoa. That's some technological shit. I mean, we haven't seen that kind of innovation in a controller since, oh, I don't know, 2001. Well, they weren't wireless that year, but that kind of technology takes time. This "revelation" was met with the chirping of crickets and the inky silence of space as it showed that a) Sony is perilously devoid of new ideas and b) they have no idea how silly they looked. If they came into this looking to steal Nintendo's thunder, they may have wanted to do it with a technology not used by one of Nintendo's own handheld games 5 years ago. Whoopsie. People seemed to be impressed with a number of games for the PS3 shown at E3, notably Assassins Creed and Metal Gear Solid 4, but the press conference and the pricing info seemed to leave people somewhat underwhelmed, which is where I am. Seeing how I just got my PS2, I can expect a PS3 sometime around 2011.

Nintendo
Going into E3, I think people were most interested in hearing about the PS3's pricing information and getting their hands on the Nintendo Wii (that name just is not getting better). The Nintendo press conference was filled with a number of juicy bits, namely that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will be a Wii launch title, available for both the GameCube and the Wii on the same day and the Wii version will make use of the controller, namely for Link's bow, his boomerang and for fishing. Yes, that's right, fishing. They also released information on a title called Wii Sports which will contain Tennis, Baseball and Golf. During the press conference, various Nintendo execs, including Shiggy and Reggie, demonstrated the game, and while a bunch of guys in suits waving around a remote shaped controller isn't exactly the picture of gaming fun you'd hope for, they did look like they were having a good time. The other interesting piece of info is that Metroid Prime 3 is also slated to be a Wii launch title. Now, I'm as skeptical as the next guy when it comes to Nintendo launch dates, but if they can launch with both a Zelda title and a Metroid title, that console will sell itself. Add a new Super Smash Bros game with Solid Snake as a playable character, and a new Mario game shortly thereafter and you've got quite the impressive lineup.

The same can be said for the DS which is getting a Zelda game, a Star Fox game and a sequel to Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. Yes, yes and yes! That console is quickly turning into the best gaming investment I've ever made, even if I'll have made it twice when all is said and done. Response to the hands on sessions with the Wii appears to be mixed depending on the games. Some games, like Sports and Metroid appear to be most enjoyable with the new controller, while others, like Madden, are a mess. There's still time for them to fix things up, but I'm a little wary about trying to take "traditional" games like Madden, which requires something like nine thousand buttons to play, and porting it to a system who's remote has 4 buttons and motion control. I think I'm the only person who ever bought Madden for a Nintendo console anyway, and I stopped years ago, so guys, certainly don't go through all of this trouble on my account. I think Nintendo made a mistake by not releasing any pricing information, especially after the Sony announcement as any price under 300 bucks would have made them look damn afforable compared to Sony. Hell, any price comparable to that of a new midsized automobile would have made them look affordable compared to Sony. A release date would have also helped, but I think it's safe to assume that the Wii will be available so as to not ruin Johnny's Christmas. I think Nintendo did the best this year, a surprise I know, by sticking to the games. There's a tremendous amount of potentially excellent content coming out from the House of N in the next year. Hopefully the Wii titles won't be too gimmicky and the DS titles will come out in a steady stream, rather than a wallet and attention crumbling deluge. Good job Nintendo, you done good.

Microsoft
Microsoft was in an interesting position this year in that their new fangled console had already launched so all they had to do was show that they plan on supporting it in the upcoming years. I'm sure they got more out of seeing their competitors' long term plans than sharing their own plans. Based on what they showed this year, I'm sure 2007 will be an amazing year to be a 360 owner, I'm just not as sure as 2006. I mean, sure, Gears of War looks to be the shizzle, but November is a looooong way off and Live Arcade games like Uno and Texas Hold 'Em aren't enough to fill those months, especially considering that the tools required to play both of those games costs about 2 bucks, combined.

The Halo 3 trailer looked pretty damn cool, and the fact that it was running in real time allowed them to show the power of the 360 and make fun of Sony's Killzone rendering fiasco from last year. Word on the street is that they had two 360's set up in case one gave up the ghost. The trailer did a very good job of showing what we could expect without showing too much, as I think they did in the E3 before Halo 2's launch. Hopefully Halo 3 will wrap up the current story line, cause you know they'll be mining that universe for games until the end of time, and they won't have those asstastic texture popping issues from Halo 2. I'm not all that excited about the Live Anywhere set of tools, as I don't play games on the PC, or on my cell phone and my Team Binky persona isn't one that I feel I need to express with every gaming action. I can assure you that if there's a Team Binky tearing up Metroid Prime: Hunters, it ain't me. Maybe if I get my cool ass Treo or SmartPhone (ha-ha-ha-ha) I'll care more about being able to get Hexic achievements via cellular technology, but I doubt it. It's good to see that Microsoft is committed to gaming, by allowing Live gamers to play games on any MSFT supported platform, but I'd be happier with a ton of 360 games in 2006 while Peter Moore calls all gamers flaming assholes. That's just me. I don't think that Microsoft did a bad job at E3, and their comments towards Nintendo have all been surprisingly cordial, even, dare I say, supportive, I just don't think they blew away gamers with 2006's 360 offerings.

I think that this is going to be a very interesting holiday season, especially if the Wii can come through with a kick ass stable of launch titles, and the motion sensitivity isn't just a gimmick. Given how they've been able to elevate the touchscreen in the DS from gimmicky play thing to essential feature, I'm not concerned about that. The launch titles, I'm super concerned about, but I think at the very least we'll have Zelda, and that's like saying at the very least, Keira Knightey is coming to your party. November can't come soon enough.

Happy Birthday To Me

On Wednesday the world celebrated the birth of one of the blogosphere's most celebrated members, notably John Scalzi. Oh, it was my birthday too, something celebrated only by myself, Linda, and our kids. I have a sneaking suspicion that the kids were only in it for the cake. I'll take whatever attention I can get.

At this point in the post, I'd like to give a ginormous "Thank You" to my beautiful wife. Despite a sick child, the stress of a broken work laptop and the stress of an impending vacation, she took the time to make the house a birthday haven that only a comic book fan could love. Even though we had decided to celebrate my birthday proper on Friday, she took an unexpected child illness, and it's subsequent attendance by both parents, to celebrate my birthday. She didn't have to do that, and it meant a tremendous amount to me. So, Linda, thanks. And thanks for everything else too. You're pretty cool.

So, what exactly did the house look like? Well, let's take a look.

Batman and Spider-Man were the heroes of the day, as demonstrated by these lovely baloons. Yes, that's a Jim Lee Batman. Woot! My son wanted to take them and play in the other room with them, but we weren't having any of that. My balloons! My balloons!

Next up is the Spider-Man banner on the pantry door. This banner doubles as a pin the tail on the donkey kind of game, where you take individual Spider-Man stickers and try and "pin" them on the topmost spire of the building there. Now, keep in mind that the Pin the Tale on the Donkey set has got to be what, 5, maybe 6 years old? This banner is on the order of 19 feet tall. Even on the packaging material there are pictures of small childen, their arms outstretched towards the heavens, desperately trying to either pin Spidey on the spire, or be rescued from this celebratory hell by either their parents or a game of Musical Chairs. Even the horrors of being the only child without a chair, are preferred to this Sysiphian endeavor.

In the foreground of this picture is one of three Spider-Man ribbon hangy things that were hung from the ceiling. In the background is one of even more copies of a photo of me taken at Ben's last birthday picture. It is not a photo I am particularly proud of, as my face is smeared with cake and I have a beer bottle and a fork to celebrate my 3 year old's birthday. The combination of my facial expression, the cake and the beer make me look like some sort of escapee from a mental institution, breaking into people's homes and helping them eat cake. The funniest part of the house's decorations was various copies of this picture, complete with slogans like "Mmmmm Cake" and "You've Still Got It". My wife, ladies and gentlemen. It's why I love her.


This is a picture, albeit a kind of crappy one, of the fridge. It's decked out in more pictures of Retaded Cake Guy as well as Batman plates and napkins. I should say The Batman, as it's my understanding that the WB will come to your home and beat you with a sock full of pennies if you refer to the Dark Knight in a manner inconsistant with the latest marketing materials. I'm a big fan of The Batman, any Batman really, so I don't mind.

Finally, after the children were in bed, we capped off the celebration with take out from one of my favorite restaurants, the One Star Ranch. This place is known for it's beef ribs, one of which is in the picture to the right. Yes, that's one rib. I used to make country style pork ribs for myself, Mark and Andy, and they were so large that Andy called them "Dinosaur Ribs". These beef ribs make those things look like toothpicks. It was so large, I couldn't even finish it. I took the huge hunk of meat on the left side of the rib, placed it in a Tupperware container and weighed it. It came out to over a pound, and that was just half of the meat that came on this thing. For the record, I prefer the pork ribs, as they're more flavorful, but you certainly can't go wrong with these babies.

For my birthday I received a number of wonderful gifts, most notably a PS2 with a copy of Guitar Hero, complete with guitar shaped controller. I know that this probable elicits laughs from the gamers in the audience, the fact that just now I'm getting my hands on a console that's been the r0x0r for about 6 years, but I picked up God of War for 20 bucks, new, the other day and will spend the same amount for all of the Jak and Dexter Games, Kingdom Hearts, Katamary Daimacy and the Ratchet and Clanks. Who's laughing now? By the way, the name of my band is The Finites. Our lives may be finite, but our capacity to rock is infinite.

Next week the wife and I will be lounging in beautiful Florida, but I have left the house in the care of Andy. He'll be posting my missives in my stead, or maybe he'll forget and he won't. Either way, have a good week.

Shockingly Refreshing

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back.

Today's question comes from Kojubat, a fellow gamer and fine purveyor of Slayer poetry. That's Slayer as in Buffy, not as in speed metal, but perhaps he dabbles in both. You'll have to ask him. His question, and it's a great one, is:

Why do some materials/environments generate more static electricity than others? Example: a car on a brisk day can shock you, but not so much in the middle of summer.

There are actually two questions in there, but because I love you twice as much as the average site, I'll answer both of them. The first has to do with materials, the second with environments, specifically cold days vs warm days.

First, lets talk a little about static electricity. Static electricity is a result of a transfer of electrons from one surface to another. When a surface either gives up enough electrons or accepts enough electrons to have a net positive or negative charge, and then comes into contact with either a neutrally charged conductive object, or an object with a significant opposite charge, there's a spark, an owie and possibly some yelling. If said spark happens at a gas station, there may be a boom, an owie, and definitely some yelling.

The charge built up to generate the spark of static electricity comes about as a result of adhesion between the two materials. When two materials come in contact with each other, a chemical bond is formed linking the two materials together. As a result of this bond, electrons will transfer from one surface to another to try and equalize the charge of the bonded materials. When the two materials are then separated, the transferred electrons are left behind. Do this enough times, say when rubbing your feet across a carpet, and you have a significantly large enough collection of abandoned electrons to either open up a Home for Wayward Electrons, or zap the hell out of your hand when you grab a doorknob.

Now, there are certain materials that have a greater tendency to obtain a positive charge, some materials that have a greater tendency to achieve a negative charge and some that won't achieve a charge at all. This series of materials is called the Triboelectric Series. The rankings of the materials is basically a generalization as there are a hojillion characteristics that come into play when determining tendency to accrue charge. Basically, objects are the top of the list, such as human skin, rabbit fur and glass have a greater tendency to give up electrons. Things like teflon and polyester have a greater tendency to capture electrons. Why this is the case, I have no idea, so for the first part of Koju's question, "why do some materials generate more static electricity than others?" the core answer is "Dunno". A simple answer would be that some materials are more apt to give up electrons and some are more apt to accept them, resulting in a large charge difference when the two items are rubbed together and then separated. So, when you and your dry skin scuff across your carpet, which is probably made from polyester fibers, you accrue a much larger charge imbalance than if you had walked across a tile floor, or a floor covered in rabbit fur. You then touch a doorknob and BAM! Shock city.

As for the second part of the question pertaining to environments, we need to look back a couple of weeks when we talked about the relationship between warm air and humidity. Generally speaking, when it's warm out, there's more humidity as warmer air has a greater capacity to hold water vapor. Cold air, not so much which leads to dryer air in the winter and more humid air in the summer. Why this matters for the old shockola is because due to the hydrogen bonding going on in all that water vapor, the more humid the air, the better it conducts electricity which means that all of those electrons that, in dryer times, would hang out on your skin just waiting to blast you, instead bleed off resulting in a smaller charge imbalance. Now, just because it's warm, it doesn't mean that it's humid, nor does it mean that cold air is always dry, but typically that's the case. So, add the dry air, which doesn't conduct electricity very well, your skin, which is typically dryer in the winter, and warm winter clothing which is traditionally chock full of polyester and your ass is getting sparked every time you touch a car door handle in February.

Static electricity, while just mildly annoying most of the time, can cause some pretty serious damage under the right circumstances. Despite all the trappings of it being an urban legend, there are numerous accounts of static electricity igniting gas vapors at gas stations (just not from cell phones, so keep on yapping if you need to) so if ever you're filling up and you see someone rubbing a rabbit with a frying pan, get the hell out of there. Similarly, while you discharging at the door knob won't cause much more than a minor spark of pain, were you to do that while working on your super sensitive integrated circuit, say in a clean room, you'd fry the sucker and it's bye-bye circuit. This is why clean rooms used for circuit construction are usually kept at a relative humidity of 50%. Any rabbits reading this, hoping to grow up and build transistors for a living may want to reset their career expectations.

So there you are Koju. Thanks for the question and please keep these tips in mind the next time you head out for a night on the town in your polyester disco suit with genuine rabbit trim. I'd hate to hear that you exploded while doing the Hustle. For the rest of you, keep the questions coming.

Sources:

School for Champions - The Triboelectric Series of Materials Causing Static Electricity - Ron Kurtus
Wikipedia - Triboelectric Effect
Howstuffworks - How Van de Graaff Generators Work - John M. Zavisa
MadSci Network - How is static electricity produced in connection to low humidity? - Barry Kamrass
ESD Journal - Static Fires

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

Before we get started we have some administrative details to discuss. I will be gone next week in beautiful Florida, far away from the hysterics of my demon children. I have yet to decide how I'm going to handle my absence. I tried to publish via email, but so far, no dice. I could add a fellow blogger as an admin and ask them to post for me, but that would require me to write up info in advance. I guess we'll see how the week progresses and whether or not I have the time. I'll let you know what I decide before I leave so as to not have you coming back here and fervently clicking for updates when no updates are coming.

Mark your calendar for June 11th. This is the day that the true Nintendo DS, also known as the DS Lite hits the North American shores. For those of you not familiar with how Nintendo handles its handhelds, allow me to break it down in three easy steps.

1. Release handheld that has fantastic games but is lacking in a) some key features or b) looks.
2. A year or so later, release same handheld as in Step 1, only now with said missing feature or significantly improved looks/ergonomics/etc, or a combination of the two.
3. Cackle with glee as money pours in and they sit on their throne of gilded baby seals.

That last step isn't entirely correct, it may be gilded puppies, possibly infant marmosets. They did it with the GameBoy Advance, which was a stellar piece of hardware except for the part where you couldn't see a goddamn thing, due to the lack of a backlit screen. At the time, Nintendo said that the backlit screen wasn't included because of battery life concerns. Well, the lack of a backlit screen certainly solved that problem as it's hard to drain the battery of a system that you never use because you need lighting conditions that rarely occur in nature. About a year or so later they redesigned the GBA and released the GBA SP which, in my mind, is the greatest handheld video game player ever created. It included a backlit screen, as well as a smaller size and a clamshell design. The backlit screen allowed users to play it even in the blackest reaches of space, and the clamshell design allowed it to be carried in one's pants pockets.

I think it's funny that the original GBA looked nothing like a cell phone, but instead like a video game player. Then came the N-Gage which actually was a cell phone, as well as a video game player, but was shaped more like a GBA which made you look like an idiot when using it as a cellphone. The GBA SP, then came out, which was a video game player shaped like a cell phone and people loved it. I have no idea where I'm going with this. I'll stop now.

While I've never had any real issue with the DS, it's not the most attractive piece of consumer electronics, and certainly can't hold a candle to the PSP's sleek, inky blackness. Now, having been an owner of a PSP, I know that said inky blackness attracts fingerprints on a level rivaled only by stainless steel appliances, which then causes you to blanket your sexy PSP in remarkably unsexy rubber. The DS was also a wee bit large which made it impossible to hold in one's pants pocket unless you wore either cargo pants or those crazy fucking Bag of Holding Dockers with their own personal wormhole pockets. It was also a bit large for holding it as a traditional game player, but seeing how you usually use the stylus for playing, thereby ensuring a non-traditional mode of holding, it hasn't been much of a concern.

The DS Lite, on the other hand is smaller, thinner has a sturdier stylus, a glossy white, iPod like surface and has three screen brightness settings all of which are brighter than the original DS. At the brightest level it can turn the undead and banish evil back to the darkest recesses of the universe. I picture an intrepid advanturer holding it aloft, the DS's brightness turning back some Lovecraftian horror bent on traversing the rift between worlds and subjugating all of humanity. Not today demon spawn, not today.

Basically, the DS Lite is the DS we all wished they had released from the start. It's not that the DS itself is bad, far from it, it's more that the Lite is so much better. Now, one can argue that the improvements aren't enough to warrant my buying of the new handheld, however when you argue that all I hear is a low level humming, much like the steady drone of bees. My current DS's screen is getting a bit scratched up, so from that perspective, a new purchase is almost a necessity. I'm paying for the DS almost entirely in trade-ins, and game returns. Top Spin 2, all I can say is "sorry." I meant to open you up and play you but you came out when Oblivion did, and then the DS Lite came along, so again, my apologies. I'm sure you're a very good game. You can sleep well knowing that the 40 bucks I spent on you pays for almost a 3rd of my DS Lite.

What I find interesting about this whole situation, and I'm sure I'm the only one, is that right around the same time that Nintendo released the North American DS Lite pricing and release info, Lucasfilms released info about the release of the original Star Wars movies on DVD. When I say "original", I mean the real deal, without any newfangled graphics, Hayden Christiansen insertion and Han Solo morals recalibration. Basically, if you saw Star Wars, Empire or Jedi in the theater when they were originally released, this is the version you'll get on DVD. Now, in this case, it bugs me because it's a way for Lucasfilms to make even more money off of this franchise, simply because they know that fans will buy these versions, as the fans have been complaining about not having these versions for what seems like eons. In the case of Lucasfilms spanking us for more money, it bugs me. With Nintendo, not so much. Trust me, I know that there's very little difference. Maybe it's because I think that in the case of Star Wars, any sense of wonderment and magic was shot to shit with episodes 1 - 3, so just having these films won't do anything to bring it back, save for costing me another 60 bucks or something. More than likely, I just don't care any more. Shoot first, don't shoot first, whatever dude. I do wonder what the Star Wars aficianados will complain about now that their precious "original" collection is finally coming to DVD. I'm sure that about 30 seconds after these movies are released epic flame wars will begin as to whether or not these are actually the "original" versions. You've been warned.

So, to sum up: I can't wait for my DS Lite, I could care less about the original versions of Star Wars, I don't mind being financially buggered by Nintendo, but I take issue to the same buggering when Lucas is on the other side of the proverbial barrel. I don't fully understand myself either and any attempts at introspection are met with low level humming. Like bees.

The Mind, It Wanders

Ah, meetings, how I love them. This is a good thing as I spent 8 hours in one yesterday for training and over 4 hours in meetings today. So that you, my esteemed fans, could get greater insight into my mind, I decided to write down my thoughts as my mind wandered during my half day of meetings today. I should preface this with a story, so that you know what to look forward to.

When Linda and I were first dating and love was all new, and sunny, and covered in the dew of the fresh morning, she'd constantly ask me "What are you thinking." As I mentioned, our relationship was still new, so she had no idea that the worst thing I could possibly tell her is exactly what I was thinking. Not because I'm malicious, or was thinking of sex with supermodels, but because there's not a whole lot going on in my head at any given moment. We were driving in her car, and I was looking at how the tassel on my jacket was somewhat bent and its bending looked like a bunny. Again, not a lot going on in here. She asked me, "What are you thinking about" and I, in a rare moment of manly wisdom, decided to answer the question as honestly as possible. "I was thinking of how my jacket looks like a bunny," I responded. She kind of looked at me, and has never asked that question again. Score one for the little guy.

So, with that in mind, here are my thoughts from today's spate of meetings. You'll have to excuse the writing style, as my handwriting is atrocious. On the plus side, I appeared to be very attentive during these meetings.

Claws
It would be cool if I had claws like Wolverine...not sure if my forearms are big enough to hold them though...yeah, they're definitely too thin...that'd be weird...like Popeye...I bet that hurts when they pop out...then again, what the hell would I do with claws?...I can't just pop them out anywhere, and even if I could, what would I do with them?...Cut meat, maybe?...I dunno...I don't cut a lot of meat...now if it was like a swiss army knife, where I had different tools, that would be useful...that would probably hurt more though, like if a wrench came popping out...ouch...that wouldn't help too much either...I don't know how to fix anything...I should stick to claws...it would be cool if I had claws.

Motivational Poster
What the hell does that poster mean?...It's a small dude climbing up a huge thumbs down...what's that message, something about learning from mistakes?...how is the thumbs down a mistake?...who's hand is that anyways?...maybe the person who made the mistake cut off their own hand...that'd be a pretty big mistake...unless you planned on it anyways...but if that's the case, why is the hand as big as the house?...and why is that dude climbing on it?...and why does the climbing dude have a hat on?...maybe it's cold up on the big hand...I dunno, I don't think he's going to learn anything from climbing up there...that's kind of gross...they should stick to those posters with eagles rowing canoes and shit...that shit is inspiring.

Hair
I have a hair growing out of my earlobe...I should take care of that...no, wait, not here...that's gross...why do we have ear hair anyways?...I can't think that, from an evolutionary perspective, there would be an advantage to hairy ears...did parts of the early human population actually die from hairless ear syndrome?...I find that hard to believe...and if we're intelligently designed, why would you design us with ear hair?...especially when you consider that we don't have hair on our palms...that would make more sense...Linda says my hands are always cold...if I designed people, I'd make our skin bulletproof and some shit...I'd make our bones denser too so we could jump out of windows and stuff...no elevator? No problem, just jump out!...I'd make us without facial hair too...I hate shaving...man, this meeting sucks...what time is it?...10!...Another 2 hours?...Lovely.

No She Didn't
Wow...I can't believe she just said that...I'm glad I didn't say something that stupid, for once.

In the Jeans
Man, that dude can talk... I know now three synonyms for "understand"...he's like a thesauraus...that's impressive...are those Rocawear jeans?...damn...those are some nice pants...I'd probably look like an idiot in those...I bet they're expensive...I wonder if they're as nice as my Old Navy jeans...oh shit...these are the jeans with the hole in the crotch...I bet Jay-Z don't make no jeans with a hole in the crotch...thank heavens for long t-shirts.

Close Call
I should make sure that's the actual go-live date...I sure sounded convincing though...ah, he'll never check.

Pen
Damn...this is a nice pen...those Sprint people make nice pens...I should hold on to this one...then again, I say that about all my pens...I don't understand how I can lose so many pens...I don't go anywhere...I certainly don't take notes when I go places...I don't really even need a pen...pen...pen...pen...that's a silly word...it looks like I can refill this one when it runs out...I'll probably lose it by then...I should ask Linda to steal me some more...pen...pen...pennity...pen...ha...that's fun.

Zzzzzzzz
Zzzzzzzzz

How Deep Is Your Love?

When titling this post, a post about the ocean, I had two choices. One was to reference Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean", the second was to reference The Bee-Gee's "How Deep Is Your Love". I chose the latter, a telling action if ever there was one.

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back. This week's question comes from the venerable Keg O' War. He asks:

Just how deep is the ocean and how deep have we been able to explore?

The simply answer is that it's tremendously fucking deep. The numerical answer is that the deepest point of the ocean is in the Mariana Trench, 210 miles SW of Guam. There, the ocean reaches a depth of 36,201 feet. This is actually the answer to both questions, as this depth was reached by a manned submersible in 1960. To put this depth in perspective, if you were to put Mount Everest in the Mariana trench, the tip of Everest would still be close to two miles underwater. Coincidentally, this is also the deepest point in the Earth's surface. The Mariana Trench, is your typical trench, long, deep and thin. For all of its depth, it's only 43 miles wide.

Here's something you may not have known, but the average depth of the ocean is deeper than the average height of surface land is high. I had found a stat that showed that, but now, for the life of me, I can't find it. Oh well, I guess you're just going to have to trust me.

Just to give you a picture of what life is like at those depths, well, first of all, it's completely black. Light can't reach those depths, so bring a flashlight. It's also a mite chilly, at 2 - 4 degrees Celsius, which is about35 - 39 degrees Farenheit, not counting the temp by thermal vents, so bring a sweater. You're also going to want to bring some sort of high pressure suit as the pressure there is over 8 tons per square inch. That's 8 tons, as in 16000 lbs. It makes sense, given that there's several miles worth of water above your head, and even if it doesn't, it's a fact, so arguing is kind of silly.

The most amazing thing about the deepest part of the ocean, is that even under those harsh conditions, life still exists. They recently found a form of plankton that lives on the ocean floor at those depths that feeds on pieces of matter that drift down off of dead things from shallower parts of the ocean. So the next time you complain that they got your fries wrong at the drive through, be thankful that you're not eating bits of dead squid that had to drift through 8 miles of ocean to get to you. I'm sure there are plankton mothers telling their plankton kids not to complain about the blackness, cold and high pressure because they don't have to work in a cube all day and fight traffic.

Included in the sources link, I've added some links to some sites that have pictures of the creatures that live at the deeper parts of the ocean. It's amazing to see the level of diversity that exists at those depths. There are some pretty messed up looking fish living down there, but they're getting it done, so more power to them.

Thanks again to Keg for the question. Keep 'em coming.

Sources:

The Mariana Trench - Oceanography
ExtremeScience.com - Challenger Deep
LiveScience.com - Organisms Found in Deepest Part of Ocean
NOVA Online - Deep-Sea Bestiary
MarineBIO.org - The Deep Sea

Wii

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I Apologize

Dear Eddie, Jeff, Stone, Mike and Matt,

I apologize for thinking that you would leave us, your faithful fans, out in the cold. I don't know why I would think that, given how gracious to us you have been in the past. As demonstrated in the picture above, I received my albums today and for that I thank you. I haven't had time to listen to the new stuff in it's entirety yet, however I've listened to about half of it, and all I can say, is fucking A. Fucking, fucking, fucking A! Good on you mates. Truly outstanding work.

Anyways, again, I apologize and please, please, please make some room on your tour for those of us holding it down in the ATL. Rest up, and I'll see you on the road.

Rock on.

-Brandon

P.S. Love the avocado, but the "band" picture inside, or whatever the hell it is, gave me the wiggins.

15 Miles on the Erie Canal

Good afternoon. I hope all is well. Today we shall riff on a number of topics, none of which involve naked old men. Not that I'm aware of anyways.

This has been a long week and I am tired, tired to my bones. My beautiful bride was traveling this week visiting the Kansas City, which put me in charge of the household. Now while I am not so far removed from the caretaking of my children to have it devolve into some sort of Keatonian farce, I will say that it was a trying and tiring experience. When there are two of you, it allows one of you to tend to the ministrations of the young, while the other runs interference, or at least prepares the props needed for the next act of the show. One person plays with the children, distracting them from their hunger while the other person works on getting dinner. One person draws the bath while the other begins the nightly cleaning up rituals. One person holds down the child while the other administers blows. That sort of thing. When there is only one person, all those duties fall on that person and it can be exhausting. I have always had a great deal of respect for those that raise children alone, either by choice or by circumstance, and that respect has only grown. I would say that I hope to return the favor soon and leave my wife alone with the children, but she being alone means that I have to be absent and I kind of like being around her. I am quite fond of her. Fancy that.

The new Springsteen album dropped on Tuesday and you would not be wrong if you were to describe it as "rollicking", an odd description given that it's a cover of folk tunes. I don't know how large Bruce's farmhouse is, but I can say that were he to sell it, he could truthfully state in the MLS listing that there is ample space for both bango players and horn sections. After hearing the album, I desperately want a house with a horn section permanently stationed in the hall. I think that the ability to yell "Horns!" and hear their rousing fanfare would be priceless. It would be very difficult for someone to construct an argument against your current position if you could easily drown out their speaking with plentiful brass. At first listen, I thought that some of the songs had too much going on, but subsequent listening sessions have cured me of this notion. I like the idea that we are hearing the music as it was made, rather than a construction of many disparate parts, all put together in some production studio.

The songs pack an enormous amount of vitality and musical craftmanship, even the low key ones. The overwhelming feeling one gets when one listens is that Bruce has a real affinity for the songs, and that he is having a geniuinely good time performing them. Such enthusiasm is infectious and makes it easy to let go the fact that there are something like 19 accordian players on the album. As an added bonus, to me anyways, the album contains the waterways classic "Erie Canal". As a child of upstate New York, I am well versed in this song, having sung it on the bus many, many times while growing up. I don't know what it was about our bus that we needed to daily pay our respects to the canal and to the men and mules that traversed it, but we did, and I remember it fondly. Low bridge, everybody down, indeed.

The new Pearl Jam album drops Tuesday and I am swelling with excitement. I have preordered it, so I can download it the minute it releases, as they won't be shipping it until Tuesday. Why this is, I have no idea. Surely, if they can ready copies for the retail behemoths to have it in their collective hands on Tuesday, they could throw it in the mail for us, the PJ faithful to have it on Tuesday as well. If they are that worried about postal expediency ruining the surprise for us, they could mail it on Monday. Whatever. Tuesday shall mark a new era of both rocking and a-rolling, with a possibility of splishing and a-splashing.

Finally, and I won't get too much into it, as I'd like to reserve my comments for Monday's gaming post, where they fit more readily, but Nintendo has decided to released the official name of their new console, up until now, known as "Revolution". We have met the console, and it is Wii (pronounced "We"). There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the online space at the moment, which I shall address on Monday. I'd like to say that by then the furor will have died down and people will resume their lives, but gamers seem to have an ability to hold grudges rivaled only by my mother-in-law and Jimmy.

Black Hole Sun

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back! Today we journey into the inky blackness of space to determine just how we're all going to buy it in the end, provided we all live to be several billion years old.

This week's question, is again from Andy. You too can send me your questions either via the comments, or in an email to suburbanjoe - at- gmail -dot- com. I don't want you to think that every week he sends me a question like some kind of slavering fanboy. He sent me a bunch all at a time. That's not to say I wouldn't want slavering fanboys, or fangirls, hanging on my every word and starting massive discussion board flame wars over some perceived inconsistancy in my writings. That would be very cool. No, Andy saw that I needed questions, and he sent some to me, him being a nice guy and all, unlike the rest of you worthless wretches. Um, I mean, unlike the rest of you very nice people (wretches). Did I say wretches? I meant wretches. OK, moving on now. This week I tackle my favorite question from all the ones sent in, specifically:

What if the Sun became a black hole?

Ah, the black hole. Is there nothing more exciting and mysterious in all of astronomy? A gaping maw in space, sucking in anything that dares get near to it, enveloping its prey in its crushing darkness as it sends you on a journey...to where? Good times. Most people associate black holes with stars and as we orbit a star, and depend on it for our existence, it's a common concern that one day it will collapse upon itself, turn into a black hole and suck us all into eternity. Well, maybe not common, but common enough to be easily researched on da Intraweb.

Before we talk about what would happen specifically to our little corner of the galaxy should good old Sol go all collapsoidal on us, lets talk about what a black hole is, and why it's so durn hard to get away from them. A black hole is an object who's mass has been compacted into such a small size that it's gravitational pull is irresistable. There are no special characterstics that an object has to have to be a black hole. Technically speaking, you could become a black hole, although I wouldn't recommend it, as it would require compacting your mass into a particle a hojillion times smaller than you are at the moment.

Every object that has mass exerts a gravitational pull on nearby objects. You do, your stapler does, the bus outside does, Mars does, our Sun does and on and on and on. For objects with relatively small mass like you and your stapler, the gravitational pull on objects is so ridiculously small, that nearby objects aren't affected. For big objects such as planets and the Sun, the force is much greater, and large enough to keep us from hurtling out into space both as individuals on our planet and as our planet in this solar system. That doesn't mean that you can't escape the grip of gravity, as Buzz Aldrin and the gang can attest to. In order to do that, you have to reach escape velocity. Escape velocity is the velocity at which you have to be traveling to escape an object's gravitational pull. It's a factor of an object's mass, and how far from the center of the object that you're calculating the velocity. For planets, we usually use the planet's radius for that last value, as usually rockets are launched from the planet's surface and not from some orbital platform. For Earth, the escape velocity is about 7 miles a second.

The important thing about the formula used to calculate escape velocity, is that the calculated escape velocity is inversely proportional to the distance from the center of the mass to where you're calculating the velocity. In other words, if this distance is small, the escape velocity is big. If the distance is big, the escape velocity is small. Remember we said that a black hole is an object who's mass has been compacted. Not lessened, but compacted. All that mass which had been in a very, very, very large object is now in a very, very, very small (relatively speaking) object, but the mass remains unchanged. If we keep the mass constant (which we are) for an object, and just decrease the size, our escape velocity for this object gets bigger. For black holes, the escape velocity gets so large, that it exceeds the speed of light. The gravitational pull of these objects is so large, that nothing, not even light, the fastest thing in the known universe, can achieve an escape velocity sufficient to escape it's gravitational pull. No, not even the Millenium Falcon. Yes, I know it did the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, but the parsec is a unit of distance. Look it up.

Now, before you get your panties all in a bunch thinking that somewhere out there is a black hole that's sucking the entire universe into it's greedy jaws, remember that the calculated escape velocity is dependent on the distance between where you're calculating the velocity and the center of the object. What that means is that there are values for this distance where the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, and values where they don't. The radius where the escape velocity equals the speed of light is called the Schwarzschild radius. Yes, yes, I know. Your Schwarzschild is as big as mine. For any distance from the center of the object greater than the Schwarzschild radius, you're A-OK. No sucking for you. Anything less than that, and well, lets just say that your calendar has been cleared for the rest of eternity. For the record, should you be pulled into a black hole, you're not going to end up in some alternate reality. You're going to be ripped apart by gravitational waves in about 8 seconds. So, maybe you will end up in an alternate reality, it just happens to be whatever version of the afterlife you cling to

Now, getting back to our good buddy, Mr Sun. As stars go, the Sun is on the smaller size, which is a good thing, because if it were bigger, it'd be hotter and we wouldn't be here. Well, not in this current, non-flameproof version anyway. Given the mass of the sun, were it to become a black hole, it's Schwarzschild radius would be about 3km, or a little under 2 miles. Given that we're 93,000,000 miles from the Sun, I think you can scratch "crushed to death by a black hole's gravitational pull" off of your ways to die list. So, from a gravitational perspective, what would happen if the Sun became a black hole is absosmurfly nothing. You'd stay where you are, it'd stay where it is, and never the twain shall meet.

That's not to say that life would be all happy-go-lucky should the Sun turn into a black hole. Stars turn into black holes when they run out of fuel and their mass is so large it begins to collapse upon itself, the important part of that sentence being "run out of fuel". No fuel means no light and no heat, which means that the Earth becomes a frozen, lightless world and we all die. Yay! But, don't worry. The Sun doesn't have enough mass to become a black hole. Instead, in about 5 billion years it'll get bigger, become a Red Giant and turn this world into a lifeless cinder. As my good buddy Robert Frost said:

"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice."

Neither one sounds particularly appealing, but at least we have all of our bases covered. Well, except for monkeys. I think the world will end in monkeys.

Sources:
The Space Place @ NASA - Phone Dr. Marc Archives
Black Holes FAQ List - Ted Bunn
NASA's Imagine the Universe - Black Holes
Wikipedia - Escape Velocity
"Fire and Ice" - Robert Frost, Harper's Magazine, December 1920

I Am So Smart, S-M-R-T

Rest assured, dear reader, I won't be succumbing to the crippling affects of Alzheimer's any time soon. I have purchased Brain Age for the DS and have begun a nightly regiment of puzzles to ensure that my drool stays where it belongs, well into my golden years. This also allows me to ignore the wife with impunity as we watch television. Before, when I would ignore her by playing Castlevania, I was treated with scorn. Not so now! Now when disparaging looks are cast my way, I can tell her that I'm engaging in actual, medically studied activities meant to allow me to keep all my faculties as we head down the highway to the inevitable, sweet release of death. As I tell her, I'm not playing this game for me, I'm playing for us.

Far be it from me to disparage the results of a lauded member of Japan's, nay, the world's medical community, but I feel as if the results of my Brain Age tests are sometimes off the mark. Allow me to explain.

The game consists of a variety of puzzles, exercises, what have you, that get your prefrontal cortex all fired up. As this region of your brain is important for reasons too numerous to mention here (translation: I don't know) it is equally important to engage in activities that are accomplished in this region. Engaging in these activities on a regular basis gets blood flowing to this area of the brain, which keeps it healthy, thereby ensuring you can do basic math as you become old and infirm.

In order to gauge your "Brain Age", you do these randomly picked exercises and the system then records how well you did and spits out the average age of test subjects who performed as well as you did. In other words, if you completed the exercise in 55 seconds, and the average age of test subjects who performed it in 55 seconds is say, 46, then your "Brain Age" is 46. The problem here, is that there are exercises where you will naturally excel at, and ones you won't. For example, I can rock the 20 calculations in no time flat. It's 20 simple math calculations, one right after the other. You write down your answers and get graded right or wrong. Get them wrong, and your time is penalized. The faster you can complete them the better. I have trained myself to be able to figure out the next calculation (you can see them all on the screen) as I'm writing down the answer to the current one, thereby giving the illusion of blinding mathematical speed. We're talking Numb3rs type shit here. I could be at Cal Tech or some similarly Tech style place of higher learning. Perhaps with a lab coat and a disheveled hair style.

When the age determination test has these kind of exercises, I do very well, when it has the word memorization exercise, I fail miserably. The premise is that they show you 30 4 letter words. No, not those 4 letter words you pervert. They then give you 2 minutes to memorize them. Once you've committed them to memory, you have 3 minutes to write down as many as you can remember. Yeah, good luck with that one. As anyone with kids will tell you, all memory goes out the window once you bring children into the home. If you don't write it down, it's forgotten, and even then, it isn't a guarantee, because you have to remember that you wrote it down and where you wrote it down in the first place. I've tried various rhymes and songs to help me memorize the words, but the most I've ever gotten is 11 which takes me about 30 seconds to write down. I then spend 2:30 just randomly picking 4 letter words out of my head. There are a lot of them, if you've ever taken the time to think about it. When the brain age determination thingy has this puzzle in it, I swear the DS is making reservations for me at the local assisted living facility.

Friday night I took my Brain Age and with the memorization puzzle, I got a score of 46, which is much better from the downright awful score of 63 I got the night before, but still a full 13 years older than my actual age. The next night, with no memorization puzzles, I scored a 23. Hell yeah! I'm wicked young and shit! Sunday night, I took it again, with the memorization, and I scored a 45. I think there should be a checkbox to tell the system that I have kids, so that it can just throw out any results derived from memorization puzzles. Besides, when was the last time I needed to memorize 30 words anyway? Right, never, whereas I am constantly asked to count how many people enter and leave a house in a given time period and provide the final tally of houseguests. That's some serious census type shit right there.

It's not like the numbers mean anything, but I do feel pretty shitty when I get a Brain Age significantly older than my actual age. I'm not anything special to look at, and I have no real demonstrable skills, so my brain is all I have. I'd like to keep it for a long as possible, at least until I can get it transferred into a younger, sexier, talent laden body. Plus, I know that once you hit 50 physical years, you start having to have exams with people putting strange things in you and taking videos and such. I don't think that anything similar exists for one's brain, but I'd rather not take my chances. There are things in there best left to the mind's dark corners.

Even if the game isn't doing anything from a clinical perspective, it's still a lot of fun, and for 20 bucks is a pretty significant value. Plus, it has gotten me hooked on Soduku, which is just what I need, more puzzles to keep me from paying attention to whatever me and the wife are watching. Also, given that I suck at the shooting type games, if ever aliens do invade and need to be beaten with conventional warfare, I'll have nothing to offer the resistance, however if their weakness lies in the ability to quickly count spinning numbers, I will singlehandedly pull this world from the gaping maw of destruction.

My Apologies

I am so very sorry that I didn't post on Friday. Work was super busy, so I couldn't post there. I had planned on posting at home, but we lost cable Thursday night, which is a very TV heavy night for us. When I got home, I started the process of downloading Smallville and burning it to DVD, with the intention of watching it that night. It took enough time and processor resources to ensure that a) we wouldn't be watching it Friday night and b) I wouldn' t be posting. Again, I apologize. What? Why couldn't I post on the other computer instead of playing Oblivion? Um, because I couldn't. That's why. Now be quiet and eat your dinner!

To compensate you for a lost post, I've decided to present some work from my old site's archives. Yes, yes, I know, it seems again I'm getting out of posting and instead just serving up some reheated crap, but this takes a lot of effort. I had to share a directory on one computer, walk all the way upstairs and copy from the old post. Ooh, and paste! I had to paste too! It's very difficult.

Some claification is due here. The post was written back when I used to go fishing, something I haven't done since adopting Ben. It was also written back when Katie Holmes topped my list of those I would be happy to see naked, and hadn't birthed the spawn of one of the world's only Operating Thetan Level VIII's. Oh how things have changed. Without further ado, here's a gripping tale of geriatric nudity I like to call...

Flashed By Al

Every year I go trout fishing with my dad and a collection of friends, family and clients of my father's. I know this comes as no surprise to you as I am the epitome of sportsmanship, outdoorsyness and all around natureafied know how. Ha! The truth of the matter is that I am completely clueless when it comes to sportsman like activities. I went hunting with my father. Once. It was not a good experience. I killed a goose. It was a damn good shot but I then had to spend 3 hours in the freezing cold sitting next to its corpse in the goose blind. Nothing takes the joy out of hunting quite like staring at your previously living quarry for several hours the whole time worrying about whether there were some goslings somewhere wondering why dad's been gone so long. I actually apologized to it. Add to that the fact that hunting requires a lot of sitting and/or standing around somewhere cold while absolutely nothing goes on. And I mean nothing. To me, that time could be better spent sleeping, or watching TV or doing something that vaguely resembles anything.

So despite my failings as a master tracker and slayer of defenseless winged creatures I do go fishing twice a year in Pennsylvania. I am a horrible fisherman. A shock, I know. I know what I am supposed to do. I know where fish congregate, I know what they eat, when they eat and for the most part can tell if a stream will yield bad or good fishing. I just can't catch the damn things. I would be the guy on Survivor that would tell the camera that I'm the tribe's best hope for fish and then several days into it be booted off by those not passed out from malnutrition. I rarely catch anything. When I do I'm a nice guy and throw it back in but usually my post-catching intentions are rendered moot by my inability to actually land anything. Sadly fish are pretty dumb so this makes me someone a) too stupid to catch a fish and b) even more stupid because I keep trying. Most fisherman will waffle on the relative intelligence of a fish depending on the situation. When they hook one and pull it out of the water they'll say that the hook doesn't hurt the fish because fish are too stupid to feel pain. On the other hand, when the day is done and there are no fish to be found in said fisherman's haul, fish are magically transformed into the wiliest of forest creatures rivaling only Nazi war criminals in their ability to remain uncaught.

I go on these trips not for the fishing but for the company, and because it makes my dad extremely happy to go fishing with his son. It's a chance to see my uncle and my cousin as well as another cousin's husband. Also my dad's friends have all known my dad for over 30 years now and they always have good stories to tell. We always have a good time regardless of how the fishing is.

As I mentioned before, I go twice a year. The first time is in April for the opening day of the season. We usually have the largest group for this weekend. The second time is usually Father's Day weekend however due to extenuating circumstances this year we didn't go until the first weekend in July. The second weekend yields a smaller group and usually has at least one client of my dad's. I've always thought it was a little weird for my dad to bring clients of his given that I know what kind of stories get told by some of the group members. On the other hand, he knows what clients would be offended and which ones wouldn't be. Otherwise he wouldn't bring them along.

This trip's newbie was Al. Al is a 68 year old Air Force veteran who spent 20 years in the military and then 20 years working with DOD contractors. Al was a nice guy if not a little strange. He's been married for 45 years to the same woman and still has a great deal of respect and admiration for her. Al is also staunchly Republican (like my dad and most of my dad's friends). Most of the time I keep my liberal mouth shut for fear of bringing the firestorm down upon me. As you can tell I learned a lot about Al in my short time with him. Almost too much.

For example I learned that Al, like my dad, has a bit of a hearing problem. Conversations with him and my dad would go something like this:

Al: His (meaning me) mother is a fine lady. (At this point I'm wondering how Al knows my mom.)
Dad: (Silence)
Al: His mother is a fine lady.
Dad: (Silence)
Al: I said his mother is a fine lady!
Dad: What?
Al: His mother, Kathleen. She's a fine lady. (For the record Kathleen is my stepmother. My dad's clients usually assume because she's his wife and I'm his son that she's my mother. This is not the case.)
Dad: Oh. Kathleen isn't his mother.
Al: What?
Me: (Thinking) Oh Jesus Christ.

I also learned that Al's son has two children and is currently in the middle of a divorce. Al told me this because he's been trying to give advice to his son but doesn't know what to tell him as Al himself has never gone through a divorce. Apparently I'm the only other person who's ever been through a divorce because he then proceeded to ask me all about it.

Al: So what was it like? Didja get over it? Did it mess you up?
Me: (Keep in mind my father is in the front seat and I've known Al for all of about 5 hours) Uh, well it's painful but kids get through it. I mean, I did.
Al: Huh. So it didn't screw you up?
Me: (At this time I'm hoping that the car blows up or drives off of a cliff or anything to stop this conversation) Uh..no. Not that I'm aware of.
Al: Huh. Well how about your sister? Did it mess her up?
Me: Um. I don't think so. I mean she hasn't gone up in a water tower and taken any shots at anyone. Nervous laughter (That's great, invoke the absence of mass murder as a indication of mental stability). I mean, as long as he's there for his kids and they know that he's there for them, they should be OK. You know?
Dad: What?
Al: Huh. That's good. I'll have to tell him that.

Now I can see how this conversation will go. "Well son, I spoke to a guy who's never been divorced and doesn't have kids but his parents got divorced almost 20 years ago and he said as long as you're there for your kids and they know that you're there for them, they should be OK. You know?"

The third thing I learned about Al is that he sleeps in the nude. Unfortunately this is first hand knowledge. When we go on these trips we rent some rooms at this nasty motel and we try to pack as many people as we can in a room. The problem is that my dad both snores and grinds his teeth, sometimes simultaneously. How he can both snore (mouth open) and grind his teeth (mouth closed) at the same time is unknown. But he does it and it makes sleeping in the same room as him next to impossible. Usually he sleeps in one room with one other hapless soul and everyone else crams into another room. This time it was me and Al in one room. Thankfully there were two beds, a point that will grow with importance as the story continues.

So I come in from talking with my dad and uncle, wash up and get into bed with the intention of reading before sleeping. Al is frantically going up and down the cable dial spending less than .000001 microseconds on any one program. Finally he decides that it's time to go to bed. I'm reading so I'm pretty much focused on my book. Out of the corner of my eye I see Al get up, walk to the TV, shut if off and then proceed to remove all of his clothing. Now when I say all, I mean all. I am now fervently focused on my book. Had the book burst into flame causing severe burns on my hands, I would have continued to hold it and read it. Then he turns around so he's now facing me, walks to his bed, gets in it and goes to sleep. I can honestly say that I have never read something so intently and with such sheer concentration in my whole life. My eyes did not, I repeat, did not waver from the page. To do so would have meant certain death, or at least extreme sexual dysfunction for some time. I can think of a number of people whom could take their clothes off in front of me in a seedy motel and I wouldn't object. Al is not on that list. Al is not even in the same galaxy as that list. Al and that list live in separate realities, destined to never meet or even know of each other's existence.

All in all the trip was a successful one, even if the only thing I caught was a glimpse of naked Al. Next year perhaps Al won't go. If he does, I'll be interested to hear how his son's divorce went. In the meantime I'm going to try to get Katie Holmes to become a client of my dad's. She is on the list. Boy howdy is she ever.

I hope you liked this blast from my previous site's past. If so, let me know and I'll not write new stuff in favor of reheated drivel in the future.

It's Not the Heat...

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back!

Before we get into the science post, did anyone see Pearl Jam on SNL this past Saturday night? I stopped watching SNL some time ago, and now I only record it if the musical guest is of intersest. As Pearl Jam is my most favorite band in the universe, nay, the multiplex, I had to record it. Their new album drops on May 2nd and I am super excited, even more so after watching them Saturday night. The band looked like they were having a great time, the set was tight and Eddie grew his hair out again. Yay! Back in college when I was young, stupid and impressionable, I grew my hair out to just above shoulder length so that I could look like Eddie Vedder. You might be surprised to know that I was in no way successful in looking like a rock star. Eddie played guitar on Worldwide Suicide which still doesn't look right. I remember the first time I ever saw Eddie playing guitar was on SNL and I remember thinking that Eddie doesn't play guitar. I don't know why it looks so odd to me, but it does. Anyway, the band looked fantastic, and Mike McCready looked like he lost some weight, which hopefully is just a health-kick thing and not a side effect (Mike has Crohn's Disease). I've already preordered the CD, and you can too but I'll warn ye, it's a bit pricey. However you do get a live show from 1992 when they opened for Keith Richards. The set includes "Dirty Frank" which is a charming, and often hilarious, song about a cannabilistic killer. Those guys!

Enough musical blathering, let us get wit da science! This week's question, like last week's question, comes from Andy who took time out of his busy motorcycle riding schedule to plum the depths of his scientific curiosity. You too can have your questions answered by me, you need only drop me an email at suburbanjoe - at - gmail - dot - com or leave your questions in the comments. No question is too large or too small. Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid questioners. Here we go.

If humidity is the moisture content of the air, why is the west coast less humid than the eastern seaboard, considering they are both close to large water sources?

This is an excellent question, and one that factors into both mine and Andy's lives as we both live in the south (him in VA and me in GA) where summers are disgustingly humid, and both of us have entertained notions of living in San Diego which, weather-wise, is paradise on earth. The difference is that Andy has a chance of living in San Diego where my need to not share a one bedroom apartment with a wife and 2 kids rules the idea out completely.

The short answer is that it's California, so who the hell knows why they do anything? I'm sure they had more humidity and then the residents voted to recall it. Ha! A little political humor there. Right, moving on. The temperature and humidity of your little piece of the world has to do with mainly two things, the temperature of the surrounding geography and which way the wind is blowing. And, as Dylan said, you don't need a weathervane to know which way the wind blows.

For the purpose of determining why CA is less humid than GA, the surrounding geography we're most concerned with are the massive bodies of water on each state's doorstep, the Pacific for CA and the Southern Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico for GA. In the summer, the Pacific ocean is relatively cool, with an average water temperature of around 60 degrees. On the other side of the country, the average temperature of southern Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico is in the mid 80's. To see where we're going with this, take an ice cube and put it in front of a fan so that the fan is blowing over the ice and onto your face. Nice cool air, huh? Now do the same with a cup of hot water. Not so cool now, is it? On a simple level, this is what's happening in the summer in the US. On the west coast, winds blow from the west, over nice, cool 60 degree water and in turn brings cooler air to our folks in CA. On the east coast, air blows up from the Gulf of Mexico and the southern Atlantic Coast, gets warmed up and then hits the eastern seaboard.

Why this makes a difference for humidity is that the air that is warmed or cooled by the prevailing winds contains a small amount of water vapor. I say small, because as a percentage of the atmosphere, water vapor accounts for very little. It may not seem that way when you walk 10 feet to your mailbox and you sweat so much that it looks like someone hit you with a hose, but trust me, it's true. If that water vapor is surrounded by hot air, the temperature of the water vapor increases. If the temp of the water vapor is high, the vapor's pressure is high. If the vapor's pressure is high, the air+vapor combo has a greater capacity to hold water vapor. In other, more simplistic terms, the warmer the air, the more water vapor it can hold, and the more humid it feels. Cool air blowing in from the Pacific can hold less water vapor than warm air blowing up from the Gulf. Hence a nice leisurely pancake breakfast on the sidewalks of San Diego in the summer, and a stank inducing sweatfest jaunt outside in Washington DC.

The temperature and wind combo also accounts for the heat waves that usually hit NYC every summer. The warm air blowing up from the Gulf covers pretty much the entire eastern seaboard, including the Big Apple. That, combined with the heat generated from millions of people crammed in a large city make for some especially warm, and fragrant times. This also explains the joy that is summer nights in upstate NY. Sleeping in coastal CA at night is a wonderful thing, the temps drop, you open the windows, maybe smell the ocean, or the wildfires, or the looting and you drift off into dreamland. Summer nights in upstate NY is like sleeping wrapped in a hot, wet towel. Because the air on the east coast contains more water vapor, the cooling process is slowed considerably, which means that you ain't opening your windows at night. I can remember one of the first apartments Linda and I lived in had brick on the outside, and no air conditioning. In the day, those bricks would bake in the sun and then all that heat would radiate from them at night and it was positively sweltering. Opening the windows did nothing becuase it was warm and humid outside. Her dad rigged up some air conditioner for us, but because it didn't vent out the window properly, it would only run for about 5 minutes before it would shut down. We'd get up in the middle of the night, turn it on, and stand in front of it for those blessed 5 minutes of cold air before it would shudder and shut off. Good times. In contrast, in CA, the dry air can cool much quicker, which leads to a greater temperature variation between day and night.

We've covered summer, so why are the winters in NY and the northeast so bad, if the air is coming from the Gulf? That would be because it isn't. In the winter, the west coast still has air blowing in over the Pacific and this air is significantly warmer than the frigid, earth shatteringly cold air that blows down from Canada into NY and all points north. Once again, it all comes down to wind. Those on the West coast can rest easy, content with the knowledge that the mighty Pacific keeps their weather nice and mellow, which will be helpful when the next Big One hits and California is cast off into the ocean. Good luck and bon voyage!

Sources:

MadSci Network - Why does warm air hold more water than cold air?
ScientificAmerican.com - What causes humidity?
USAToday.com - Air masses bring variety of weather - Chad Palmer
USAToday.com - Answers: Weather, climate of the U.S. West

Fun with Oblivion

Seeing how I've been playing nothing but Oblivion, I thought I'd spin some tales from my adventures. Thrilling, I know. Before I do though, I'd like to take a moment to talk about Tetris DS. The Easter Bunny was kind enough to drop off a copy yesterday (Thanks Easter Bunny! Bawk bawk!) and I played a little last night before being chastised by the wife for not paying attention to The Sopranos. It's amazing that they managed to take Tetris, which was perfectly addicting on its own, and craft multiple amazingly addicting game modes out of it. The combination of Tetris and classic Nintendo themes just rounds out the package. If you like Tetris, it's a no brainer. This week also sees the Japan favorite Brain Age drop for the DS. Fending off Alzheimers has never been so much fun!

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, onward, to Oblivion!

Sir Arcur Ran Away, Away, Bravely Ran Away
So I had heard about this super cool sword you can get early in the game that does copious amount of damage, plus lets you trap souls (soul trapping is necessary if you don't want to pay the outrageous prices for third party magical weapon recharging). The sword is also a quest item for a quest which is known to be broken, and getting it ahead of time is a valid workaround. Having already been through one broken quest, a positively unpleasant experience, I figured I'd get the sword ahead of time, ravage the countryside with it and just give it up when the time came. The problem is that, like most good weapons, the present owner rarely gives it up without a fight, or at the very least, some harsh language. This particular sword owner was no different and I read many the stories about how hard it is to fight her.

Not being one to expend any extra effort if I don't have to, I made my way to the dungeon, found said warrior and after being told to leave, I scoped the place out until I found a perch suitable for my particular brand of cowardice. All my leaping around the countryside like a spring rabbit has given me the ability to scale the greatest of heights, which then allows me to pelt my enemies with arrows while they flail away at the base of my hunting stand, poweless to stand against me. I did the same in this case, but either this chick had like a hojillion hit points or she kept running behind a column to heal herself because I put close to 75 arrows in her and she wasn't anywhere near dead. On to plan B.

Plan B made use of the facts that a) enemies will chase you through doors, b) I had a horse and c) I was a short ride from Imperial City which is positively bristling with legion soldiers, none of whom would be down with this chick pounding on me with her sword, even if I did start the fight. Again I made it down to the dungeon, again she told me to leave, only this time I then smacked her in the face. It was actually kind of funny. I guess you had to be there. I then proceeded to run like a scared child out to my horse and rode with haste to the city. After a few moments, I realized she wasn't chasing me any more, looked back and she was fighting a boar. A boar! Then, once done, she began trudging back to her dungeon. Come on! I dismounted, tagged her with an arrow and the chase was back on. As we approached the city, I could hear the clanking of her armor behind me, behind me, behind me, alongside me, in front of me, what the hell? Apparantly, not wanting to tussle with the guards, she put on a burst of speed, out ran me and my horse, hooked a quick left at the city gate and took off for the surrounding lake. That chick could move. I quickly lost sight of her as she presumably sprinted back to her home. OK, plan C.

Plan C involved everything in plan B, only this time, I'd repeatedly stop to let her whack me with her sword. Actually, I let her whack my horse with her sword, but as the horse seemed to heal without benefit of medical attention, it seemed OK with it. After several minuted of ride-whack-ow-ride-whack-ow, I managed to lead her right into the city. As luck would have it the guard's first and second in command were present. As they're important quest dudes, they can't die, so they quickly dispatched her. The other random guards didn't have the same quest protection, but they died protecting their city from the homicidal maniac that I led to their gates. I'm sure their families are proud. Once she was dead, I looted her body, as well as the bodies of the dead guards and sold off the armor and all weapons but the cool ass sword. Mission accomplished and all it took was some effort and some extra carrots for Ol' Paint. Actually there's no way to give the horse carrots. I just didn't want you to think that the only thing I gave my horse was gaping leg wounds.

For Want of a Horse
No, I also give my horse the sweet release of death. Actually I have no idea where my horse is. I head about this necklace that increases the skill that governs swordplay and my sources had told me that said necklace was in a cave very close to my present location. As my sources all existed on the internet, I should have known that they would be positively wrong in the wrongest sense of the word. When I arrived to said cave I was accosted by this wood nymph kind of chick who likes to conjure bears to do her dirty work for her. Usually, in this case, the best thing to do is ignore the bear and take her down as the bear will dissappear once she's gone. The problem here was that the bear was trying to eat my horse, so while I was taking the chick down, my horse got fed up and ran off. Either that or it died. I'm not really sure. All I know is that I couldn't find it once the nymph had been dispatched. Lovely.

I head into the cave, fight through the entire thing and no necklace. I found some cool stuff, sure, but I don't need the cash that comes with selling good loot, I need a necklace that makes me better at slicing and dicing. Earlier in the game, I had helped out some merchants and exposed a corrupt guard who had been shaking them all down. Apparantly he got out of jail and tracked me down, because as I entered one room and was beset by a minotaur and a will-o-the-wisp, this guy showed up and started attacking me. I believe my exact words were, "Now? You're doing this now?!" Here's something you may not know. Minotaurs and will-o-the-wisps will attack adventuring treasure hunters on site, but will have no problem with vengeance fueled ex-cons. I managed to lead them all into this one huge room where I backpedaled around a big central pit and alternated between hitting them with my sword and shooting them with arrows. It was all very surreal.

Once I realized that the necklace was nowhere to be found, I decided to head to a nearby inn and return some notes to a researcher who had lost them in the cave. I figured that I should at least get something out of this whole debacle. Upon arriving I was immediately taken into custody by a guard and fined 1000 bucks, for what I don't know. 1000 bucks! I don't know if it was for killing the ex-con or letting my horse die or what. All I know is that this little trip cost me 1000 bucks in fines as well as a horse, the replacement cost of which will probably be about 5 grand. Plus, I had to pay to get my weapons and armor repaired, which cost about 4 grand. All in all, I think I made 1000 bucks off of the loot, which puts me 9 grand in the hole. Thank you internet! I can do without a horse, but it makes finding places on the map a lot easier, especially if the places you find are besieged by baddies that you don't feel like fighting. I can usually just run away from them and they leave me alone. Stupid nonexistant necklace.

Grand Theft Oblivion
Even though I rolled an evil player, I find that I'll pretty much do anything for anyone, even if it's a good deed. I haven't joined the Fighter's Guild as that appears to be a bastion of goody-too-shoes ness and I don't swing that way. About 90% of my time is spent breaking into people's homes and stealing things as well as doing quests that have me assassinating people, so even if I wanted to be good, there's too much fun to be had by being bad. That being said, I try not to outright murder people if there's no reason to, as it only brings the law down on me and that's bad for business. However, on occasion, I'll make an exception. As part of a different quest, I had to travel to this guy's house and get a staff back from him. Even when I used my magical wiles to charm him into the stratosphere, the best I could do is get him to sell me the staff for 200 bucks. I must have pissed the guy off somehow because he called the guards on me and I had to pay another fine and all of my stolen stuff was confiscated, including some stuff that I had pilfered for the purpose of some quests down the line. At this point, I vowed that once I wrapped up my current quest (no killing allowed during Thieves Guild quests) I am going to go back to this guy's house and take him out. Him and his very unpleasant wife too. If they call the guards on me, I'll promptly pay the fine and then head back to the house to finish the job. I don't think that the game has anything like restraining orders, so let them try and stop me. Besides, I'm the Arena Grand Champion. I go where I want and do what I want. Plus, that dude owes me 200 bucks and I mean to collect.

I have a line on some interesting quests including one about a haunted beach and one about a shrine that nets you a staff that will change your non-human enemy into a randomly picked creature for 30 seconds. It may not make the fight any less difficult but it will certainly make it more interesting. I keep telling myself to wrap up what I'm doing before taking on new work, but then someone is telling me about some ghostly fort and I'm all like "yeah, I'll do that". I've put over 30 hours into the game and I've just barely started the main quest. Where those 30 hours have gone, I have no idea. I do know that I haven't played a game in a very long time that make it so easy to have fun just exploring around. If they could somehow make the level loading times disappear, you'd have the perfect experience.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to a guy about a horse.

Party Like It's 1989

I walked to the bank today and cashed a check. It was positively old school.

Some Random Observations

Ah Friday, when all narrative flow jumps right out the window. There's a rhyme in there, should you want to look for it. I should do these posts on Monday so that I can tell good stories rather than the current strategy which is to just blather on in a fatigue induced fugue. That's a good word, fugue. Let's all say it together, "fugue". Good stuff. Of course, if I switched around the order of things my gaming posts would all be on the order of "Me like games. Games good." The wife would probably enjoy that very much, so perhaps it warrants consideration.

I have some observations for you today. Perhaps you have observed similar things in your lives. Perhaps not and I've observed them for you. If that's the case, then you should stop reading this, get out there and make your own observations. Come back on Monday and we'll share.

In no particular order, here are some things I've been privy to in the past weeks:

* If, at the time you go to bed, you turn off the light in the hallway and barely open your sleeping daughter's door so that you can turn her ceiling fan off, the resulting shift in air pressure will wake her up and she'll spend the night screaming. On the other hand, if, at some point in the evening, she throws up all over herself and her crib, she'll sleep right through it.

* A room that has been an all-night vomitorium smells bad enough to make the heavens weep. A more noxious odor exists in no place other than the blackest pits of hell.

* A baby that has slept in vomit all night is surprisingly receptive to a bath at 6 in the morning.

* If you have recently moved to a time clock situation at work, you will hit every red light on your way to work, ensuring your late arrival. Intersections that went for years without the benefit of illuminated traffic direction will spring traffic lights, like flowers in the springtime, solely to slow you down. Old people in walkers will be out in droves to cross every interesection you come to, impeding your progess lest you run them down and risk being late to work by 15 minutes and 15 - 20 years.

* No matter how much you have come to terms with an unpleasant new work development, when the time comes to actually start implementing said new work development, you will be filled with pools of black rage.

* It is unhealthy to spend 8 hours a day filled with pools of black rage. 5 hours is probably the upper limit in that situation.

* When someone decides to use a conference room for a phone call, they will talk louder when the door is shut, as if they want the rest of the floor to hear their conversation, but they know that they should shut the door because it's the polite thing to do. Either that or they think that closing the door magically turns the room into a soundproof fortress of solitude and they can now yell with abandon and sheer joy at the prospect of being at work. On a similar note, these same people think that using a speakerphone is preferable to picking up a handset, so that the rest of the floor can hear both sides of the conversation.

* We hate the aforementioned people.

* When you are very busy at work, and too tired to post at home, your head is filled with stories. When you have nothing but time on your hands, you make unfunny posts about stupid observations.

* 10 observations is probably enough

Have a good weekend and a happy Sunday holiday. If you're celebrating the resurrection of your Lord and Saviour, good on you. If you're celebrating the exodus of your people, enjoy the matzoh. If you just like candy, try the Reese's Fudge Peanut Butter Eggs. They're to die for.

Tattoo Time

First of all, I'd like to take this time to wish my beautiful bride a very happy birthday. Supposedly it's not polite to talk about a woman's age, so let's just say that she's a year older than she was last year. Some people say that they don't get older, they just get better and this definitely applies to her, because I love her more now than I ever did. Not that she wasn't good last year, she was pretty damn awesome. She just seems to be getting better and better as she gets older. By the time we're old enough to retire, she'll be so good I'll barely be able to stand her. Kidding!

Today's science post is all about a subject near and dear to my heart, namely tattoos. I love my tattoos and want copious amounts of them. The only thing holding me back at the moment is spousal acceptance, which is a force stronger than any in the universe. Our question of the week comes from my good friend Andy who asks:

Why do tatoos persist without spreading out or dissolving?

An excellent question, and proof to all of you out there sitting on your own questions, that I do take the time to answer reader requests. So send 'em in!

This is a pretty interesting question and gets to the inner workings of our biggers organ, namely our skin. Your skin is comprised of three layers, the epidermis, the dermis and the hypodermis. The epidermis is the skin you can see. Cells from this layer routinely work their way from the bottom of the epidermis up to the surface where they are sloughed off and feasted on by dust mites as you sleep. Some disgustingly high percentage of dust is actually human skin cells, which freaks me out to no end. The next time you're dusting, think about how most of what you just picked up is what stayed behind from Aunt Mabel's last visit. Ew. If your tattoo ink was deposited solely in the epidermis, it wouldn't be the permament testament to your love of Dokken that it is today.

Instead, tattoo ink is deposited in the dermis, which is the layer that gives skin it's elasticity. The dermis is comprised of all of the fun parts of your skin, including sweat glands and hair follicles. You don't get much more fun than sweat glands. Hoo boy. The dermis is also the home to fibrocyte cells, dendritic cells, macrophages, and mast cells. The first cells, fibrocytes, are responsible for proteins that establish the network of connective tissue that keep the dermis together. Those last three cells, dendritic cells, macrophages, and mast cells, help keep the dermis's immune response working.

When you get a tattoo, your epidermis and dermis are punctured many, many times by the buzzing tattoo needle and ink particles are deposited in the top most layer of the dermis. At this point, your body's immune response takes over. Macrophage cells and other phagocytic cells head to the area, find all these ink particles in the dermis, and proceed to "eat" the ink particles. As a result, the ink particles are enveloped by the macrophage and other phagocytic cells. As the tattoo heals, the cells containing the tattoo ink are trapped in the rebuilt connective tissue. For about a month after the tattoo, some ink particles escape up through the epidermis, but by 2 - 3 months, all of the ink is safely trapped in the dermis. This helps to explain why your nice, vivid tattoo becomes somewhat less vivid 2 - 3 months after its application, revealing any areas that need to be touched up.

Over time, the cells containing the ink move deeper into the dermis, and some of the cells migrate to the lymph nodes to say "Hey! Look what I captured!" This helps to explain why tattoos fade over time, however there's no clear answer to this question. Presumably, once all the diseases in the world are cured, science will turn it's eye to the important questions of tattoo fading.

So, to answer Andy's question simply, the reason that tattoo ink doesn't spread out or dissolve is because the ink is trapped in immune system cells that are themselves trapped in the fibers of the skin as the skin heals.

The other thing to take away from this post, as anyone with a tattoo can tell you, is that the care you give your tattoo immediately following its application is crucial to the health and longevity of your tattoo. The better care you can give your skin, such as moisturizing and proper application of antiobiotics, the better your body can focus on consuming and trapping the tattoo ink, rather than fighting off other infections or other damage to the skin. Similarly, this outlines why sun damage is so bad for tattoos. Sun damage kills skin cells, requiring the immune system cells to leave the dermis, where they're keeping the ink, and tend to the cells being killed by our good buddy Mr. Sun. For those with external tattoos, keep 'em moisturized and keep 'em sunscreened. That way you can have them well into your golden years, where they'll act as a constant reminder of when you were young and stupid.

Sources:
BME News - Tattoos
VeloNews - Ask the Doctor: Tattoos and beauty are skin deep
TeensHealth - Tattoos