Forgive the lack of a clever title. My clever title subscription just ran out
It is an odd thing to think that September 11th was 5 years ago. A lot has happened since then, however I can still remember sitting at my kitchen table with Linda, eating KFC and listening to fighter jets scream over Dulles airport, not 5 minutes from our house. As if the jets weren't strange enough, they were the only planes in the sky, an oddity, given that we lived 5 minutes from an airport. Add to that, some of the terrorists boarded at Dulles and the oddity of it all is nigh insurmountable.
I'd like to say that the sweeping changes in our nation's policies have made us better prepared to deal with a disaster of similar magnitude, but Katrina cleared that notion up for us. How convenient that the one year anniversary of Katrina is so close to the anniversary of 9-11, so that we can see how woefully underprepared we still are. That's not to say that I think another attack will happen, I honestly have no idea. The combined intelligence forces have disrupted enough plots to make me think they're on top of their collective games, but at the same time, plots keep coming up for the various agencies to thwart. Nothing I can do, so I guess I'll just keep doing what I've been doing and live my life the way I've been living it, with nothing but paranoia and massive distrust for all I meet. Kidding.
Now that I've been at work a week, I find I'm fitting in quite well. Everyone is very nice and they expect you to get in there, get up to speed quickly and get to work. I can live with that. I'm having a bit of hard time understanding how all of the various parts of the product come together, but I'm sure in time it'll all come to me. I have joined their bowling league and today purchased shoes for this express purpose as a cost savings device. Imagine sneakers, but with felt on the soles and you have bowling shoes. A shirt has also been acquired. Not a bowling shirt per se, but one of close enough composition and color to have its intent understood. I only spent 7 dollars on it, so don't worry that I'm bankrupting my children's future so that I can dress in accordance with local bowling customs. I'm just trying to do my best to enjoy myself before I hit the lanes and make an utter fool of myself.
At the end of the 4 week league, I get my own ball, custom drilled for my fingers and fit to my palm to be my own, personal instrument of destruction. I have named it Pinslayer and will use it to cut a swath of devastation across any alley I come across. For now I shall limit it to bowling alleys, however there may come a time when I use it to thwart misdeeds in alleys of all sorts. Evildoers, beware, for the day of your reckoning is nigh, and it comes in the form of a 7-10 split.
My work environment has also rekindled my desire to acquire Nerf weaponry. I was originally inspired by this comic as reading it brought back pleasant memories of a time when a man and his Nerf Arrowstorm would rain foam hellfire down upon any who would dare oppose him. Ask those who used to work with me and they will tell you stories of a man who ruled all he saw with only his wits and his Arrowstorm to defend his holdings. Since then, I have worked at a few places, none of which seemed open to the idea of foam weaponry, but I believe a new day has dawned and the call to dart arms has gone out. It is imperative that I arm myself again, and the Maverick is just weapon for the job. While it doesn't have the stopping power, nor the intimidating presence of the Arrowstorm, I feel it's smaller profile and suction cup darts are better suited to my current workplace. Plus, best to not scare people off at this early point in my career. Undoubtedly my purchasing of such a weapon will spark an arms race and it is at that point I can pull out the heavy weaponry. There's no need to show all of my cards now, or some similar meaning poker reference.
I am dissappointed that the Maverick is not a semi-automatic weapon as the need to crank and fire keeps me from dual wielding effectively As a child of both Dungeons and Dragons and Bruce Willis movies, having each of my hands wrapped around cold, unforgiving steel is a notion as comforting as Christmas morning. I have heard that one can make modifications to increase the yield of their Nerf weaponry, however that is a level of dedication I am uncomfortable engaging in. Rest assured it also voids your warranty. For now, one weapon per person will have to suffice, but I will consider the Dremel as an appropriate course of action should the need to go John Woo on someone's ass arises. I shall keep you appraised of events as they unfold.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Friday, September 08, 2006
The Commanding of Foxes, Star and Otherwise
Greetings. Welcome to Friday's post. It will be rife with topics, so please try and bear with me. The majority of them will be gaming related, however structure and I have parted ways for today. You've been warned.
I was quite bummed out to hear of Steve Irwin's death. I've always liked him and anyone who does work to help endangered animals is ok in my book. More importantly, I hate to hear of anyone dying and leaving behind a family with such young children. It is this last part that people seem to have forgotten, which irritates me to no end. Why people have to take this time to come out and say what an animal subjugating asshole Steve Irwin was is beyond me. I mean, the poor man hasn't been dead a week and already folks are damn near gloating over his death. Can't we have some seblance of propriety and give his family time to mourn before we go on tv and the radio and say what a callous bastard the man was? It's not like he was a war criminal or something, a being so evil that his actions must be condemned, regardless of the impact on others. He wrestled gators for Christ's sake. Let's let the poor man rest in peace for a little while before we paint him as the Antichrist of the crocodile set. It's times like these I feel that my loathing for humanity in general is well founded.
I picked up Star Fox Command on my week off and am finding it to be an entertaining game, but not without fault. The flying controls are very well done. THe ship is always flying forward, which allows you to control the ship entirely with the stylus. You drag the stylus to steer the ship, tap in the upper portion of the touchscreen to do a turbo boost, tap in the lower portion to brake, and drag the stylus left to right anywhere to perform a barrel roll. This last part is needed to deflect enemy shots, collect powerups and attack motherships. Additionally you can tap a loop-de-loop button or a u-turn button to do quick turnarounds. You can use any button youd like to fire shots, but I've found the left trigger button to provide maximum firepower for minimal clickage. Bombs are also available by tapping the bomb icon on the touchscreen and dragging the bomb on to you radar. It's an odd kind of mechanic, and is more like calling in an airstrike than dropping a bom from your craft unless it's some sort of strange teleporting bomb which isn't so much dropped from your ship as magically placed in the theatre of combat. It sounds complicated, but it comes together quite well.
The game play is an odd mix of turn based strategy and spaceship flying. The turn based strategy I could do without as it seems to be just a means of extending the gameplay time in between flying missions, rather than a compliment to the space missions. At the beginning of each mission you'll have yourself, your allies and your mothership on the screen and by scribbling away the fog of war, or simply drawing paths for your ships to follow through it, you'll uncover various enemies, missles for the mothership, or general combat powerups. Once you've decided on a course of action, you perform your turn and collect powerups and engage enemies in combat, at which point it switches over to the flying missions. If, by the time you run out of turns you haven't found and defeated all of the enemies on the screen, you have to start the whole mission over again. This is particularly annoying if you've spent some time on several flying missions only to find yourself in your last mission with something like 25 enemies and only 10 seconds to defeat them all. Ditto for spending a bunch of time battling enemies in one part of the screen only to have some bastard sneak in from somewhere else and put the kablooey on your mothership. Personally, I could do without the turn based part, and wish there were a way to just turn it off, as I'm only interested in flying and blowing things up, but I can live with it to have a portable space flying game. Even with the save game structure, you can get through missions in a short amount of time, making it more conducive to short bursts of game play than Metroid Prime: Hunters. There's a Mechwarrior game on the horizon which, if devoid of turn based mission malarky, may supplant Star Fox as my space combat game of choice. We'll see. I don't consider it a bad purchase, however if you're looking for just flying and shooting, I don't know if I would recommend it. Also everyone speaks in a strange, robotic tongue, despite me not having the robot speech option turned on. Why there's even a robot speech option in the first place is beyond me.
The bloom on the Dead Rising rose has worn off, sad to say. I keep forgetting to make it to save spots and up doing the same things over and over again. I know that there are many of folks who believe that the game's save structure is a blessing as it allows you to get your character powered up for the main mission, but those people have functioning memories, unlike myself who always forgets to make it to the restroom or security office to save and up as zombie food in the mall. That and I've been spoiled by Oblivion, a game which allows you to tiptoe through the meadows and pick flowers and ride unicorns or some shit all the live long day until you're ready to jump back into the main storyline or any of a dozen storylines you've left hanging while you've played Johnny Fucking Appleseed. Now that I've had that, I demand it of all of my other games, Dead Rising included. I don't feel bad about purchasing the game, even if I don't plan on finishing it, as I would like to support the zombie in a mall genre, and I may keep it around to see what happens in the end, however Lego Star Wars is beckoning so I also may trade it in and just watch the cut scenes on YouTube.
Guitar Hero continues to plague my wrist with soreness as the Medium level songs represents a jump from Easy similar to how a 5K run represents a jump in difficulty from walking across your kitchen. Sure, you can probably run that 5k on your first try without any training, but don't expect to be hanging out at the winner's circle. I haven't been booed off the stage yet, however my run of 3-star performances isn't exactly allowing me to quit my day job and rock out full time. I'm averaging something like 100 bucks a gig. Sorry Judy, you're going to have to keep working at the Kinko's until I can spend more time with Spanish Castle Magic.
A partial set list (I say partial because it's only 20 or so songs long) for Guitar Hero 2 has been released and the rock is well represented. The addition of "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Freebird" has me slavering with anticipation. I can only hope that the character modelers at Red Octane are working on an Axel Rose snake shimmy animation for the lead singer. I would also like a Slash-esque guitar hero character model as well, complete with hat and eye covering rock hair. Still no Led Zeppelin, however hopes are high. I would like to see some extra peripherals for the guitar controller including a waa-waa pedal that you could hit to either engage your Star Power, or just change the sound of your axe. I would also like one of those mouthpiece thingies, complete with a 20 minute long Frampton song. I would not recommend using the mouthpiece in multiplayer though as I'm pretty sure you don't want to share that with someone else. I get wigged out when I have to share a controller with someone who's hands sweat during Burnout races, but maybe you're less hesitant about swapping bodily fluids with those you game with. To each their own.
I haven't been playing a lot of games lately as I'm watching back seasons of Battlestar Galactica. The show reminds me of Firefly, just without the witty banter and the swearing in Chinese. It's well written, well acted and chock full of badass space combat. I'm glad to see it's doing as well as it is, and can only assume that had Firefly been on Sci-Fi, where it would have a built in audience, rather than shuffled around to death on Fox, we'd be well into our 4th or 5th season. Oh well. I don't think I'll be caught up for the Season 3 premiere but will be Tivoing with abandon.
Finally, Redskins football starts on Monday. All is right in the world, or at least in my insignficantly small part of it.
I was quite bummed out to hear of Steve Irwin's death. I've always liked him and anyone who does work to help endangered animals is ok in my book. More importantly, I hate to hear of anyone dying and leaving behind a family with such young children. It is this last part that people seem to have forgotten, which irritates me to no end. Why people have to take this time to come out and say what an animal subjugating asshole Steve Irwin was is beyond me. I mean, the poor man hasn't been dead a week and already folks are damn near gloating over his death. Can't we have some seblance of propriety and give his family time to mourn before we go on tv and the radio and say what a callous bastard the man was? It's not like he was a war criminal or something, a being so evil that his actions must be condemned, regardless of the impact on others. He wrestled gators for Christ's sake. Let's let the poor man rest in peace for a little while before we paint him as the Antichrist of the crocodile set. It's times like these I feel that my loathing for humanity in general is well founded.
I picked up Star Fox Command on my week off and am finding it to be an entertaining game, but not without fault. The flying controls are very well done. THe ship is always flying forward, which allows you to control the ship entirely with the stylus. You drag the stylus to steer the ship, tap in the upper portion of the touchscreen to do a turbo boost, tap in the lower portion to brake, and drag the stylus left to right anywhere to perform a barrel roll. This last part is needed to deflect enemy shots, collect powerups and attack motherships. Additionally you can tap a loop-de-loop button or a u-turn button to do quick turnarounds. You can use any button youd like to fire shots, but I've found the left trigger button to provide maximum firepower for minimal clickage. Bombs are also available by tapping the bomb icon on the touchscreen and dragging the bomb on to you radar. It's an odd kind of mechanic, and is more like calling in an airstrike than dropping a bom from your craft unless it's some sort of strange teleporting bomb which isn't so much dropped from your ship as magically placed in the theatre of combat. It sounds complicated, but it comes together quite well.
The game play is an odd mix of turn based strategy and spaceship flying. The turn based strategy I could do without as it seems to be just a means of extending the gameplay time in between flying missions, rather than a compliment to the space missions. At the beginning of each mission you'll have yourself, your allies and your mothership on the screen and by scribbling away the fog of war, or simply drawing paths for your ships to follow through it, you'll uncover various enemies, missles for the mothership, or general combat powerups. Once you've decided on a course of action, you perform your turn and collect powerups and engage enemies in combat, at which point it switches over to the flying missions. If, by the time you run out of turns you haven't found and defeated all of the enemies on the screen, you have to start the whole mission over again. This is particularly annoying if you've spent some time on several flying missions only to find yourself in your last mission with something like 25 enemies and only 10 seconds to defeat them all. Ditto for spending a bunch of time battling enemies in one part of the screen only to have some bastard sneak in from somewhere else and put the kablooey on your mothership. Personally, I could do without the turn based part, and wish there were a way to just turn it off, as I'm only interested in flying and blowing things up, but I can live with it to have a portable space flying game. Even with the save game structure, you can get through missions in a short amount of time, making it more conducive to short bursts of game play than Metroid Prime: Hunters. There's a Mechwarrior game on the horizon which, if devoid of turn based mission malarky, may supplant Star Fox as my space combat game of choice. We'll see. I don't consider it a bad purchase, however if you're looking for just flying and shooting, I don't know if I would recommend it. Also everyone speaks in a strange, robotic tongue, despite me not having the robot speech option turned on. Why there's even a robot speech option in the first place is beyond me.
The bloom on the Dead Rising rose has worn off, sad to say. I keep forgetting to make it to save spots and up doing the same things over and over again. I know that there are many of folks who believe that the game's save structure is a blessing as it allows you to get your character powered up for the main mission, but those people have functioning memories, unlike myself who always forgets to make it to the restroom or security office to save and up as zombie food in the mall. That and I've been spoiled by Oblivion, a game which allows you to tiptoe through the meadows and pick flowers and ride unicorns or some shit all the live long day until you're ready to jump back into the main storyline or any of a dozen storylines you've left hanging while you've played Johnny Fucking Appleseed. Now that I've had that, I demand it of all of my other games, Dead Rising included. I don't feel bad about purchasing the game, even if I don't plan on finishing it, as I would like to support the zombie in a mall genre, and I may keep it around to see what happens in the end, however Lego Star Wars is beckoning so I also may trade it in and just watch the cut scenes on YouTube.
Guitar Hero continues to plague my wrist with soreness as the Medium level songs represents a jump from Easy similar to how a 5K run represents a jump in difficulty from walking across your kitchen. Sure, you can probably run that 5k on your first try without any training, but don't expect to be hanging out at the winner's circle. I haven't been booed off the stage yet, however my run of 3-star performances isn't exactly allowing me to quit my day job and rock out full time. I'm averaging something like 100 bucks a gig. Sorry Judy, you're going to have to keep working at the Kinko's until I can spend more time with Spanish Castle Magic.
A partial set list (I say partial because it's only 20 or so songs long) for Guitar Hero 2 has been released and the rock is well represented. The addition of "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Freebird" has me slavering with anticipation. I can only hope that the character modelers at Red Octane are working on an Axel Rose snake shimmy animation for the lead singer. I would also like a Slash-esque guitar hero character model as well, complete with hat and eye covering rock hair. Still no Led Zeppelin, however hopes are high. I would like to see some extra peripherals for the guitar controller including a waa-waa pedal that you could hit to either engage your Star Power, or just change the sound of your axe. I would also like one of those mouthpiece thingies, complete with a 20 minute long Frampton song. I would not recommend using the mouthpiece in multiplayer though as I'm pretty sure you don't want to share that with someone else. I get wigged out when I have to share a controller with someone who's hands sweat during Burnout races, but maybe you're less hesitant about swapping bodily fluids with those you game with. To each their own.
I haven't been playing a lot of games lately as I'm watching back seasons of Battlestar Galactica. The show reminds me of Firefly, just without the witty banter and the swearing in Chinese. It's well written, well acted and chock full of badass space combat. I'm glad to see it's doing as well as it is, and can only assume that had Firefly been on Sci-Fi, where it would have a built in audience, rather than shuffled around to death on Fox, we'd be well into our 4th or 5th season. Oh well. I don't think I'll be caught up for the Season 3 premiere but will be Tivoing with abandon.
Finally, Redskins football starts on Monday. All is right in the world, or at least in my insignficantly small part of it.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Back from Vacation
Well here we are, back from vacation. Not that I didn't know this already, but one thing a week off of work really teaches you is how much you hate working. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying my new job, even if I'm still getting "up to speed" and don't have a tremendous amount of work to do, but last week was fan-fracking-tastic. To give you a glimpse of how I spent my week of no working, I present the traditional beginning of the school year essay...
What I Did On My Summer Vacation
This summer I took a week off of work after I quit my job and before I started my new job. It was nice. I did lots of things. My wife was home with me because she works at home. She was nice too. She ate lunch with me every day. One day we went to the Chinese restaurant for the buffet lunch. We ate a lot. Then we had milkshakes because we had coupons that were going to expire. I know it seems strange to spend 7 dollars on milkshakes because two one dollar coupons were going to expire, but mine had chocolate and peanut butter.
On Monday I watched "Dawn of the Dead". I watched the original, theatrical version. I laughed when they made fun of Johnstown, PA because my dad is from Johnstown and those people would totally spend all of their time shooting zombies. They have a lot of hunters in Johnstown and I bet they'd much rather shoot zombies than deer. They have a lot of fishermen in Johnstown too, but I don't think it would be very easy to kill zombies with a fly fishing rod. I have never tried though, so it might be easy and I just don't know. While I watched the movie, I started putting together my super cool Ultimate Collector's Lego model of the Imperial AT-ST scout walker. It had a lot of pieces and most of them were gray.
On Monday afternoon I played Dead Rising, which, like "Dawn of the Dead" is about a guy in a mall with zombies. For some reason, I'm not as excited about this game now as I was when I first got it. I played for a bunch, forgot to save, got killed and then didn't feel like starting again. Then I shut it off and lost a lot of fake money playing Texas Hold 'Em. Mom says I shouldn't gamble. She's probably right. I'm really bad at it.
Tuesday Linda stayed home too and we did yard work. We raked out the mulch under the swingset and pulled all the weeds. Then we put down landscape fabric. Then I went to the county tax commissioner's office and got my old license plates transferred to my new car. Then I went home and we took the big pile of playground mulch that was on the driveway and put it on the landscape fabric that was under the swingset. It was a big area. We put down 5 cubic yards of mulch. It was a lot of mulch. It was hot and we got really tired. We drank a lot of water but I didn't pee once because I was sweating so much. I had planned on it taking two days but because Linda was helping me, it only took one day. Linda was very helpful.
On Wednesday I watched "An American Werewolf in London" while I continued to put together my lego set. Then I came upstairs and meant to just read the paper but instead started watching "Deep Rising". It had Famke Jannsen in it. She's really hot. The movie was good and was really gory. I also went out and bought the new Pete Yorn cd and went to the pharmacy to pick up Linda's prescription and went to the game store to pick up Star Fox Command for the DS. I probably played more poker too. I think I played Oblivion. I'm not sure. I also cleaned the bathrooms.
Thursday I went to the grocery store to buy things for our friends' visit. Then I cleaned the hardwood floors. Then I watched "Starship Troopers" and kept working on my lego set. It had Denise Richards in it. The movie, not my lego set. She's really hot. The movie was good and was really gory. Then I mowed the lawn in the rain. I didn't mean to mow the lawn in the rain but I was mowing and it started raining and I didn't want to stop mowing because we had friends coming over the weekend and I couldn't mow then. I like mowing the lawn in the rain. It makes me feel like a rebel. Thursday afternoon I played Oblivion and continued working on the Daedric quests. I had to give up Umbra, but I'm really strong now and I have so many magical weapons that if one runs out of a charge, I just use another one to kill things. In the afternoon I watched "US Marshalls" and finished my Lego set. It's really tall, but the head seems out of proportion. I have no room for it in the basement. I should put it on my mantle in my bedroom next to my Batmobile.
Friday Nick, Adrienne and Luke came to visit from Virginia. We all had a good time. It was good to see them. I would like them to move here as it would be nice to have friends that are close by. Plus, Nick and I used to play tennis and now we don't and I'm fat. We all had a lot of fun over the weekend and ate a lot of junk food.
I had a very nice summer vacation. I watched a lot of good movies and played a lot of good games and got to have lunch with my wife every day. I also got to do other things with her in the daytime that I won't talk about here because I don't want to get suspended. If it were up to me, I would never go to work again and I would just watch movies and play games and eat at Chinese buffets every day. Having a job sucks.
The end.
What I Did On My Summer Vacation
This summer I took a week off of work after I quit my job and before I started my new job. It was nice. I did lots of things. My wife was home with me because she works at home. She was nice too. She ate lunch with me every day. One day we went to the Chinese restaurant for the buffet lunch. We ate a lot. Then we had milkshakes because we had coupons that were going to expire. I know it seems strange to spend 7 dollars on milkshakes because two one dollar coupons were going to expire, but mine had chocolate and peanut butter.
On Monday I watched "Dawn of the Dead". I watched the original, theatrical version. I laughed when they made fun of Johnstown, PA because my dad is from Johnstown and those people would totally spend all of their time shooting zombies. They have a lot of hunters in Johnstown and I bet they'd much rather shoot zombies than deer. They have a lot of fishermen in Johnstown too, but I don't think it would be very easy to kill zombies with a fly fishing rod. I have never tried though, so it might be easy and I just don't know. While I watched the movie, I started putting together my super cool Ultimate Collector's Lego model of the Imperial AT-ST scout walker. It had a lot of pieces and most of them were gray.
On Monday afternoon I played Dead Rising, which, like "Dawn of the Dead" is about a guy in a mall with zombies. For some reason, I'm not as excited about this game now as I was when I first got it. I played for a bunch, forgot to save, got killed and then didn't feel like starting again. Then I shut it off and lost a lot of fake money playing Texas Hold 'Em. Mom says I shouldn't gamble. She's probably right. I'm really bad at it.
Tuesday Linda stayed home too and we did yard work. We raked out the mulch under the swingset and pulled all the weeds. Then we put down landscape fabric. Then I went to the county tax commissioner's office and got my old license plates transferred to my new car. Then I went home and we took the big pile of playground mulch that was on the driveway and put it on the landscape fabric that was under the swingset. It was a big area. We put down 5 cubic yards of mulch. It was a lot of mulch. It was hot and we got really tired. We drank a lot of water but I didn't pee once because I was sweating so much. I had planned on it taking two days but because Linda was helping me, it only took one day. Linda was very helpful.
On Wednesday I watched "An American Werewolf in London" while I continued to put together my lego set. Then I came upstairs and meant to just read the paper but instead started watching "Deep Rising". It had Famke Jannsen in it. She's really hot. The movie was good and was really gory. I also went out and bought the new Pete Yorn cd and went to the pharmacy to pick up Linda's prescription and went to the game store to pick up Star Fox Command for the DS. I probably played more poker too. I think I played Oblivion. I'm not sure. I also cleaned the bathrooms.
Thursday I went to the grocery store to buy things for our friends' visit. Then I cleaned the hardwood floors. Then I watched "Starship Troopers" and kept working on my lego set. It had Denise Richards in it. The movie, not my lego set. She's really hot. The movie was good and was really gory. Then I mowed the lawn in the rain. I didn't mean to mow the lawn in the rain but I was mowing and it started raining and I didn't want to stop mowing because we had friends coming over the weekend and I couldn't mow then. I like mowing the lawn in the rain. It makes me feel like a rebel. Thursday afternoon I played Oblivion and continued working on the Daedric quests. I had to give up Umbra, but I'm really strong now and I have so many magical weapons that if one runs out of a charge, I just use another one to kill things. In the afternoon I watched "US Marshalls" and finished my Lego set. It's really tall, but the head seems out of proportion. I have no room for it in the basement. I should put it on my mantle in my bedroom next to my Batmobile.
Friday Nick, Adrienne and Luke came to visit from Virginia. We all had a good time. It was good to see them. I would like them to move here as it would be nice to have friends that are close by. Plus, Nick and I used to play tennis and now we don't and I'm fat. We all had a lot of fun over the weekend and ate a lot of junk food.
I had a very nice summer vacation. I watched a lot of good movies and played a lot of good games and got to have lunch with my wife every day. I also got to do other things with her in the daytime that I won't talk about here because I don't want to get suspended. If it were up to me, I would never go to work again and I would just watch movies and play games and eat at Chinese buffets every day. Having a job sucks.
The end.
Monday, August 28, 2006
On vacation
I am taking advantage of my time between jobs to get some yard work done and to sit on my ass and not do a goddamn thing. That includes posting, so consider me officially on vacation. I won't say that I'll definitely be gone all week, however if you're searching for a site with regular updates, this is most decidedly not the place to be looking this week.
Regular posting returns next week. Have fun.
Regular posting returns next week. Have fun.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Endings for Beginnings
The last day at work shot. 13 months later and I'm leaving the cube as I found it. Oh how I'll miss that sterile, gray box. Upwards and onwards.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Songs for the Deaf, Track 2
Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back.
Today's question comes again from Dennis who asks,
Here's what we do know. At some point in time, roughly 13.7 billion years ago, according to Hubble's Law, the universe began expanding. Well, that's not entirely correct. We are able to first observe the universe expanding 13.7 billion years ago. No doubt, something happened prior to that point to create all the matter in the universe and some expansion would have taken place prior to our being able to observe it, however our current scientific theories completely break down in those moments, rendering the point moot. In other words, scientific theory, as we now know it, can only account for what happened after a certain point in the universe's life. Prior to that, we don't know what happened nor can we know.
The point in time in which we can start getting some idea as to what went on is one Planck time after t = 0 for the universe. One Planck time is the length of time it takes a photon to travel one Planck length or 1.6 × 10-35 meters. So, roughly speaking, something happened and at that time and at that place, all the matter and energy in the universe was created and all fundamental theories were combined, living in perfect harmony, no doubt singing joyously about thier grand unification. One Planck time after that, gravity said "Fuck this, I'm outta here" and split off. At that point, theoretical physics can start giving us some idea as to what was going on.
Just as we can't speak to the universe at a time younger than one Planck time, quantum physics says we can't speak of the universe as being smaller than one Planck length as if we did, we'd basically be speaking of a point in space and time that has infinite density, due the fact that everything in creation would have to be packed into one really, really small space. Way smaller than a breadbox.
If you are unsatisfied with this answer and need to know the current center of the universe's expansion, you need only look within. Hubble's Law tells us that the universe is expanding outward equally, such that for any observer it would appear that the universe is expanding outwards from them. Imagine, if you will, that the universe is a cookie and you and I are chocolate chips in said cookie. As the cookie bakes and expands uniformly, you and I will move farther and farther apart. From your point of view, you're not moving at all and I'm the one getting farther away. From where I'm sitting, you're the one moving away. Eventually someone comes and eats us both, that being the inevitable hand of Death, so there's not much of a point in arguing it anyways, but you asked, so I answered.
So there you have it. Where did the universe start? I don't know and neither does anyone else. Well, anyone on this planet anyways. Where is the universe currently expanding from? That would be me. Or maybe it's you. It's all relative.
A special prize will be awarded to the first person to tell me what the title of this post has to do with the post itself. Respond via the comments.
Sources:
"The Expanding Universe" - Gary Felder, 2000
Wikipedia - Big Bang
Wikipedia - Planck Epoch
Wikipedia - Planck Time
Wikipedia - Graphical Timeline of the Big Bang
Today's question comes again from Dennis who asks,
Where is the physical point of origin for the universe's expansion?Finally, an easy question. Here's your answer: I don't know. And not just me, but science doesn't know either. Well science as we currently know it doesn't know and not only does it not know, but it can't know. How's that for an answer?
Here's what we do know. At some point in time, roughly 13.7 billion years ago, according to Hubble's Law, the universe began expanding. Well, that's not entirely correct. We are able to first observe the universe expanding 13.7 billion years ago. No doubt, something happened prior to that point to create all the matter in the universe and some expansion would have taken place prior to our being able to observe it, however our current scientific theories completely break down in those moments, rendering the point moot. In other words, scientific theory, as we now know it, can only account for what happened after a certain point in the universe's life. Prior to that, we don't know what happened nor can we know.
The point in time in which we can start getting some idea as to what went on is one Planck time after t = 0 for the universe. One Planck time is the length of time it takes a photon to travel one Planck length or 1.6 × 10-35 meters. So, roughly speaking, something happened and at that time and at that place, all the matter and energy in the universe was created and all fundamental theories were combined, living in perfect harmony, no doubt singing joyously about thier grand unification. One Planck time after that, gravity said "Fuck this, I'm outta here" and split off. At that point, theoretical physics can start giving us some idea as to what was going on.
Just as we can't speak to the universe at a time younger than one Planck time, quantum physics says we can't speak of the universe as being smaller than one Planck length as if we did, we'd basically be speaking of a point in space and time that has infinite density, due the fact that everything in creation would have to be packed into one really, really small space. Way smaller than a breadbox.
If you are unsatisfied with this answer and need to know the current center of the universe's expansion, you need only look within. Hubble's Law tells us that the universe is expanding outward equally, such that for any observer it would appear that the universe is expanding outwards from them. Imagine, if you will, that the universe is a cookie and you and I are chocolate chips in said cookie. As the cookie bakes and expands uniformly, you and I will move farther and farther apart. From your point of view, you're not moving at all and I'm the one getting farther away. From where I'm sitting, you're the one moving away. Eventually someone comes and eats us both, that being the inevitable hand of Death, so there's not much of a point in arguing it anyways, but you asked, so I answered.
So there you have it. Where did the universe start? I don't know and neither does anyone else. Well, anyone on this planet anyways. Where is the universe currently expanding from? That would be me. Or maybe it's you. It's all relative.
A special prize will be awarded to the first person to tell me what the title of this post has to do with the post itself. Respond via the comments.
Sources:
"The Expanding Universe" - Gary Felder, 2000
Wikipedia - Big Bang
Wikipedia - Planck Epoch
Wikipedia - Planck Time
Wikipedia - Graphical Timeline of the Big Bang
Monday, August 21, 2006
Call Me
Oh, the joys of the Smartphone.
Recently, last week to be exact, my wife, who is a wonderous object of luminous beauty, purchased for me the Treo 700p, which is also a wonderous object of luminous beauty. Funny how things work out that way. As an employee of Sprint, she not only got the phone at the rate that others get only when signing 2 year contracts, providing a pint of blood, and signing over all claims to lands both here and in the afterlife, but her employment also confers upon me the joys of a monthly bill somewhere south of 20 dollars. This includes normal phone usage, unlimited text messaging, and more importantly, unlimited data usage.
Now, the upside of this is that I can use the phone to do pretty much anything and everything it was created to do, short of watching the premium tv channels. The bad news is that even if Sprint somehow relocated to Hell, and instead of being a Technical Writer, Linda was placed in charge of letting the HellBeasts feast on the gizzards of the damned, she would not be able to quit as I can't be without my data plan, nor can I justify spending 80 bucks a month just so that I can read the email informing me of my winning bid on Battlestar Galactica: Season One whilst I idle at a red light. Such is the devilish powers of these baubles. They quickly insinuate themselves into your lives to the point where you can't remember when you didn't have them. Like children, only with bright shiny screens and less dinner time pooping.
I'm still getting used to the phone and its myriad features, however I have gotten used to it enough to tell you that this thing is an amazing little piece of technology. The Economist ran an article upon the 25th anniversary of the PC basically saying that it was the mobile phone, not the PC that was carrying forward the notion of unlimited communication and portable computing power that seemed to be the birthright of the PC. When I use this phone, I have to agree with them. Email, web access, document creation, editing and viewing, movies, music, games and a phone, all in something that can fit in your pocket. Now, as phones go, it costs a pretty penny, but compared to the price of a PC, it's downright economical. That's not to say that you can ditch your PC and do all of your work on a Treo, however given that mobile phones have a greater penetration in underdeveloped nations than PC's do, a phone like this will do more to carry forth the notion of what a computer can do better than any PC.
But I digress. The damn thing works like a charm. Setting up things like email accounts, web bookmarks and other data applications is quick and easy. There's something like 9 email applications on the blasted thing depending on whether or not you want business email, personal email or some sort of setup that has you communicating with livestock. It comes loaded with multiple email profiles for things like Comcast, Earthlink, Google, etc so all you do is enter username and password and boom, you're off and emailing.
Most applications can be used with either the touchscreen or the 5-way rocker button, however some things, like certain games, can only be played with the stylus-touchscreen combo. That's to be expected as Mahjong would be an exercise in futility if you tried to select tiles with only the 5-way rocker. Some things, the phone in particular don't work nearly as well using only the touchscreen. The mute button, for example, is very small and requires either the use of the stylus, or the use of a particularly sharp and focused fingernail. I am considering growing a coke dealer/pimp nail on my pinkie so that I can better utilize my phone's features. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the use of the touchscreen, however when I'm using the phone, I want to use it as a phone and having to get the stylus out for muting seems like far too much work. I also call into question my cleanliness when I hang up and see a smear of ear grease on the touchscreen. Can't be helped, I guess.
Call quality is excellent, even if the signal switches from non-roaming to roaming randomly in the confines of our home even if the phone is left alone and not moved a millimeter. As I didn't have a signal at all in our house with Nextel service, any extra bars, even if they be roaming ones, are welcome. Besides, I don't pay for roaming, so what's it to me? The phone can be bouncing signals off of towers in fucking Poland for all I care. When I have a full set of non-roaming bars, the phone is identical in quality to a landline. No more will I drive home, listening to conference calls, desperately hoping that noone is asking me anything directly as I can't make out a single goddamned word anyone is saying. Now I can hear things clearly and cleanly. For the record, people don't seem to care I'm on the call, so all that worrying was for naught.
The Sprint TV application is pretty cool. I'm happy to download the Ghost Rider trailer and watch it as I wait for my bagel to be prepared however I wouldn't consider it a necessary feature. When the NFL is in full swing, it may hold more appeal, but I think I have to pay extra for that and I'm perfectly happy waiting until I get home to see how my team has fared. This device has cured me of the need for a video iPod, not that I had much of one in the first place, as I can't see myself watching anything for any length of time on such a small screen lest my already aged and infirmed eyes whither and die in their sockets from such fervent straining. Getting video on this thing can't be any harder than it was for the PSP, an exercise in technological bullshittery if ever there was one, so I can quickly turn it into a video iPod of sorts if I feel the need.
There seem to be no shortage of apps for the device, some that work well and seamlessly with the other preloaded apps, some that seem to have been made by epileptic monkeys. Needing to shut down my IM client just so that I can choose to connect to an additional service would be one of the latter. It's free, so I can't complain too much, however it is easy to see that there are those that believe in standards for the device's software and those that laugh at the idea of standards and then fling poo at your person. So far my favorite application is one that allows you to use mp3's as ringtones, assigning different ones to any of your contacts. Linda's is the chorus of "Old Dan Tucker" as realized by a one Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Well, not yet as I don't have an SD card to hold them, but soon I will. Not sure what I'm going to do for Andy, something from Nick Cave, no doubt, but I'm not too concerned as the fucker never calls me. Ever. In fact, no one ever calls me, so all of this work seems to be wasted time, but I'm having fun with it, and in the end, that's all that matters. I'm not sure what my default ring tone is going to be, but the chorus of "Brandy" by The Looking Glass is calling to me much like the sea called to those callous, waitress ignoring fuckers in the song.
To sum up, it's a fucking kick ass little piece of technology and for a big old dork like me, it confers a certain air of gadget supremacy. My phone can, and will, beat up your phone. Yes, it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that I can't live without the thing, especially given that I've only had it a week. It's more like I wouldn't want to go on living were it to be taken from me. That, on the other hand, seems perfectly reasonable.
Recently, last week to be exact, my wife, who is a wonderous object of luminous beauty, purchased for me the Treo 700p, which is also a wonderous object of luminous beauty. Funny how things work out that way. As an employee of Sprint, she not only got the phone at the rate that others get only when signing 2 year contracts, providing a pint of blood, and signing over all claims to lands both here and in the afterlife, but her employment also confers upon me the joys of a monthly bill somewhere south of 20 dollars. This includes normal phone usage, unlimited text messaging, and more importantly, unlimited data usage.Now, the upside of this is that I can use the phone to do pretty much anything and everything it was created to do, short of watching the premium tv channels. The bad news is that even if Sprint somehow relocated to Hell, and instead of being a Technical Writer, Linda was placed in charge of letting the HellBeasts feast on the gizzards of the damned, she would not be able to quit as I can't be without my data plan, nor can I justify spending 80 bucks a month just so that I can read the email informing me of my winning bid on Battlestar Galactica: Season One whilst I idle at a red light. Such is the devilish powers of these baubles. They quickly insinuate themselves into your lives to the point where you can't remember when you didn't have them. Like children, only with bright shiny screens and less dinner time pooping.
I'm still getting used to the phone and its myriad features, however I have gotten used to it enough to tell you that this thing is an amazing little piece of technology. The Economist ran an article upon the 25th anniversary of the PC basically saying that it was the mobile phone, not the PC that was carrying forward the notion of unlimited communication and portable computing power that seemed to be the birthright of the PC. When I use this phone, I have to agree with them. Email, web access, document creation, editing and viewing, movies, music, games and a phone, all in something that can fit in your pocket. Now, as phones go, it costs a pretty penny, but compared to the price of a PC, it's downright economical. That's not to say that you can ditch your PC and do all of your work on a Treo, however given that mobile phones have a greater penetration in underdeveloped nations than PC's do, a phone like this will do more to carry forth the notion of what a computer can do better than any PC.
But I digress. The damn thing works like a charm. Setting up things like email accounts, web bookmarks and other data applications is quick and easy. There's something like 9 email applications on the blasted thing depending on whether or not you want business email, personal email or some sort of setup that has you communicating with livestock. It comes loaded with multiple email profiles for things like Comcast, Earthlink, Google, etc so all you do is enter username and password and boom, you're off and emailing.
Most applications can be used with either the touchscreen or the 5-way rocker button, however some things, like certain games, can only be played with the stylus-touchscreen combo. That's to be expected as Mahjong would be an exercise in futility if you tried to select tiles with only the 5-way rocker. Some things, the phone in particular don't work nearly as well using only the touchscreen. The mute button, for example, is very small and requires either the use of the stylus, or the use of a particularly sharp and focused fingernail. I am considering growing a coke dealer/pimp nail on my pinkie so that I can better utilize my phone's features. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the use of the touchscreen, however when I'm using the phone, I want to use it as a phone and having to get the stylus out for muting seems like far too much work. I also call into question my cleanliness when I hang up and see a smear of ear grease on the touchscreen. Can't be helped, I guess.
Call quality is excellent, even if the signal switches from non-roaming to roaming randomly in the confines of our home even if the phone is left alone and not moved a millimeter. As I didn't have a signal at all in our house with Nextel service, any extra bars, even if they be roaming ones, are welcome. Besides, I don't pay for roaming, so what's it to me? The phone can be bouncing signals off of towers in fucking Poland for all I care. When I have a full set of non-roaming bars, the phone is identical in quality to a landline. No more will I drive home, listening to conference calls, desperately hoping that noone is asking me anything directly as I can't make out a single goddamned word anyone is saying. Now I can hear things clearly and cleanly. For the record, people don't seem to care I'm on the call, so all that worrying was for naught.
The Sprint TV application is pretty cool. I'm happy to download the Ghost Rider trailer and watch it as I wait for my bagel to be prepared however I wouldn't consider it a necessary feature. When the NFL is in full swing, it may hold more appeal, but I think I have to pay extra for that and I'm perfectly happy waiting until I get home to see how my team has fared. This device has cured me of the need for a video iPod, not that I had much of one in the first place, as I can't see myself watching anything for any length of time on such a small screen lest my already aged and infirmed eyes whither and die in their sockets from such fervent straining. Getting video on this thing can't be any harder than it was for the PSP, an exercise in technological bullshittery if ever there was one, so I can quickly turn it into a video iPod of sorts if I feel the need.
There seem to be no shortage of apps for the device, some that work well and seamlessly with the other preloaded apps, some that seem to have been made by epileptic monkeys. Needing to shut down my IM client just so that I can choose to connect to an additional service would be one of the latter. It's free, so I can't complain too much, however it is easy to see that there are those that believe in standards for the device's software and those that laugh at the idea of standards and then fling poo at your person. So far my favorite application is one that allows you to use mp3's as ringtones, assigning different ones to any of your contacts. Linda's is the chorus of "Old Dan Tucker" as realized by a one Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Well, not yet as I don't have an SD card to hold them, but soon I will. Not sure what I'm going to do for Andy, something from Nick Cave, no doubt, but I'm not too concerned as the fucker never calls me. Ever. In fact, no one ever calls me, so all of this work seems to be wasted time, but I'm having fun with it, and in the end, that's all that matters. I'm not sure what my default ring tone is going to be, but the chorus of "Brandy" by The Looking Glass is calling to me much like the sea called to those callous, waitress ignoring fuckers in the song.
To sum up, it's a fucking kick ass little piece of technology and for a big old dork like me, it confers a certain air of gadget supremacy. My phone can, and will, beat up your phone. Yes, it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that I can't live without the thing, especially given that I've only had it a week. It's more like I wouldn't want to go on living were it to be taken from me. That, on the other hand, seems perfectly reasonable.
Friday, August 18, 2006
It's A Dead Man's Party
Not a lot to talk about on the gaming side. I bought Dead Rising but wasn't going to start playing it until I had a) finished the main quest in Oblivion and b) finished Kameo. Last weekend I finished the main quest in Oblivion and then realized that I didn't like Kameo all that much. As a result, the plastic came off of Dead Rising and I played a little.
It's a fun game, however if you're going to play it, make sure you like staring at loading screens as the flow of the game goes something like this:
Fight zombies
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
Run through zombies
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
etc
Loading screen
ok, that's enough
Loading screen
Thankfully, those times that involve fighting zombies allow you to do things like hit them with hot frying pans, run through them with an open patio umbrella, chop them up with a push mower and smash them over the head with large, ceramic planters. After a while, the loading screen becomes your friend as it allows to collect your wits and decide what seemingly normal object you're going to use to dispatch the shambling masses of the undead. Maybe a cd case? Perhaps a nightstick? Without the loading screen to provide a well deserved diversion, you might not think to smack a zombie with a severed hand from its recently dispatched co-zombie.
The cutscenes are well done, and well acted in the voice department and have the usual Capcom cute chick with big boobs. The Department of Homeland Security may see an increase in job applications from young, barely post-pubescent men who see it as the only viable option should they want to pursue a career in both smashing zombies and ogling women.
The much derided save system deserves every bit of criticism flung its way as it is both cumbersome and silly. Having one save is bad, but having a mission structure that demands you be at a certain place at a certain time, lest the entire game come to a screeching halt and you can't proceed is fucking stupid. Why Capcom felt that people, when faced with a mall filled with zombies and nearly every means of killing them possible, wouldn't want to just spend time killing said zombies is beyond me. They should take some time talking to the fine folks at Bethesda who, with their excellent RPG Oblivion, have realized that people want to do things at their own pace and if that means putting off the main quest for 75+ hours while they run through meadows and pick flowers, then OK, let them go and do that. I have heard rumors of an Infinite mode where you can run around the mall and kill zombies all the live long day, but my understanding is that this mode doesn't include the various escort missions, which would make it somewhat difficult to obtain certain achievements without starting the main game all over again. At least the game allows you to keep all of your experience should you spend too much time hitting zombies in the face with a toolbox and miss a mission. At least then you don't feel like you just wasted all that time and it makes your character a leaner, more efficient zombie killing machine.
Myself, I have come up with a solution to this save/mission system in which I don't give a fuck about the other people trapped in the mall and instead let them instead realize their dreams of being a huddled, shivering, zombie buffet. This allows me to be in the right place at the right time, to get the missions, and prevents me from having to give up my weapons and food to keep these morons alive as I escort them back to the security office. I have to admit, that the first time I saw the "James Smith is Dead" overlay on the screen, informing me that the poor chap trapped in the Hair Barn just met his demise, I felt bad for poor James. Now, when I see those screens I cackle with glee as I know that I won't be held behind by their plaintive wailings and substandard speed. Plus, if James is dead, I'm sure he'll come back as a zombie which will give me a chance to apologize before I cave his zombie face in with a mannequin arm. Here's hoping he understands. I'd hate for it to become a thing between us.
Soon the gaming deluge of DS games will be upon us, so I need to spend some time clearing up space in the old DS case. Between that, Guitar Hero, Dead Rising, Oblivion, the mewling of my all but abandoned copy of Burnout Revenge and the newly downloaded games for my new Treo there's a lot of gaming to be done and very little time to do it. Thankfully I have a week in between jobs to help me ease the load. It's a tough job, but I think I'm up for it. Now, if you'll excuse me, but my weedwhacker has a hankering for a hunk of, a slab or slice or chunk of, a hankering for a hunk of zombie.
It's a fun game, however if you're going to play it, make sure you like staring at loading screens as the flow of the game goes something like this:
Fight zombies
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
Run through zombies
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
Cut scene
Loading screen
etc
Loading screen
ok, that's enough
Loading screen
Thankfully, those times that involve fighting zombies allow you to do things like hit them with hot frying pans, run through them with an open patio umbrella, chop them up with a push mower and smash them over the head with large, ceramic planters. After a while, the loading screen becomes your friend as it allows to collect your wits and decide what seemingly normal object you're going to use to dispatch the shambling masses of the undead. Maybe a cd case? Perhaps a nightstick? Without the loading screen to provide a well deserved diversion, you might not think to smack a zombie with a severed hand from its recently dispatched co-zombie.
The cutscenes are well done, and well acted in the voice department and have the usual Capcom cute chick with big boobs. The Department of Homeland Security may see an increase in job applications from young, barely post-pubescent men who see it as the only viable option should they want to pursue a career in both smashing zombies and ogling women.
The much derided save system deserves every bit of criticism flung its way as it is both cumbersome and silly. Having one save is bad, but having a mission structure that demands you be at a certain place at a certain time, lest the entire game come to a screeching halt and you can't proceed is fucking stupid. Why Capcom felt that people, when faced with a mall filled with zombies and nearly every means of killing them possible, wouldn't want to just spend time killing said zombies is beyond me. They should take some time talking to the fine folks at Bethesda who, with their excellent RPG Oblivion, have realized that people want to do things at their own pace and if that means putting off the main quest for 75+ hours while they run through meadows and pick flowers, then OK, let them go and do that. I have heard rumors of an Infinite mode where you can run around the mall and kill zombies all the live long day, but my understanding is that this mode doesn't include the various escort missions, which would make it somewhat difficult to obtain certain achievements without starting the main game all over again. At least the game allows you to keep all of your experience should you spend too much time hitting zombies in the face with a toolbox and miss a mission. At least then you don't feel like you just wasted all that time and it makes your character a leaner, more efficient zombie killing machine.
Myself, I have come up with a solution to this save/mission system in which I don't give a fuck about the other people trapped in the mall and instead let them instead realize their dreams of being a huddled, shivering, zombie buffet. This allows me to be in the right place at the right time, to get the missions, and prevents me from having to give up my weapons and food to keep these morons alive as I escort them back to the security office. I have to admit, that the first time I saw the "James Smith is Dead" overlay on the screen, informing me that the poor chap trapped in the Hair Barn just met his demise, I felt bad for poor James. Now, when I see those screens I cackle with glee as I know that I won't be held behind by their plaintive wailings and substandard speed. Plus, if James is dead, I'm sure he'll come back as a zombie which will give me a chance to apologize before I cave his zombie face in with a mannequin arm. Here's hoping he understands. I'd hate for it to become a thing between us.
Soon the gaming deluge of DS games will be upon us, so I need to spend some time clearing up space in the old DS case. Between that, Guitar Hero, Dead Rising, Oblivion, the mewling of my all but abandoned copy of Burnout Revenge and the newly downloaded games for my new Treo there's a lot of gaming to be done and very little time to do it. Thankfully I have a week in between jobs to help me ease the load. It's a tough job, but I think I'm up for it. Now, if you'll excuse me, but my weedwhacker has a hankering for a hunk of, a slab or slice or chunk of, a hankering for a hunk of zombie.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
I'm Not Dead Yet
Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back. Today's question comes from Dennis, who, in a fit of feline concern asks:
Right. Schrodinger's Cat is a thought exercise dreamt up by Erwin Schrodinger to point out some of the fallacies of an early version of the theory of quantum mechanics. Rather than have me paraphrase it, I'll just repeat the paradox here:
Now, in reality, a system need not be observed only by us humans, or something with senses, to be considered "observed", something Schrodinger knew and was trying to point out. In his paradox, the instrument that collects the radiation from the decayed particle would act as the observer and, as a result, would collapse the wave function down into the decayed nucleus/dead cat option. It would be pretty silly of us to think that we need be the observer in order for such a collapse to take place.
This brings us to the idea of decoherence. Decoherence is the mechanism by which a quantum system's information is "leaked" into the surrounding environment so that a situation like dead cat/alive cat combinations don't exist in any measureable way. In other words, it may appear that the wavefunction has collapsed, but in reality, we just can't measure the superposition of the wavefunctions. Clear as mud, right?
So, if we take our cat system into consideration again, what kind of "information" can leak into the environment should we discount the observational abilities of the geiger counter? Well, for one, the cat would certainly know if it were alive or dead. Second, if the cat were alive, the change in the surrounding environment due to the cat breathing would count as "observations". If the cat were dead, the various bacteria that live in the cat that can now start the process of decomposition would "observe" that the cat was dead, effectively collapsing the wave function. Decoherence tells us that for something like a cat in a box, there are just too many damn atomic particles, all getting tangled up with each other, that the uncertainty as to the state of these particles is effectively zero. The cat isn't in a state of death and life at the same time, it's either one or the other, we just don't know which one until we open the box. I realize that quantum physics isn't taking into consideration the Theory of Zomibification, in which an undead, zombie cat can exist as both alive and dead at the same time, but that's a discussion for another time.
Now, decoherence is interesting because if you can keep a particle's superposition of states going, even after being "observed" there are significant applications there for quantum computing. We won't get into it too much here, as it's a pretty deep topic, but if you can imagine how in "classical" computing, everything is based on ones and zeroes, you can only imagine how much computing power would increase if a particle could be made to be both a one and a zero at the same time. Jinkies!
So Dennis, in summary, I don't know if ol' Erwin's cat is dead or not, but, like before, I'm going to ask that you check, 'cause if he ain't, I'm sure that fucker is pissed.
Sources:
Wikipedia - Schrodinger's Cat
Wikipedia - Decoherence
Brad Marston - Killing Cats
John Boccio - "How Decoherence Kills Schrodinger's Cat"
My answer would have to be, I don't know, but I'd rather you check because I don't want to be the one that kills it. Ha! Ah, physics humor, is there nothing funnier?Is Schrodinger's Cat dead yet?
Right. Schrodinger's Cat is a thought exercise dreamt up by Erwin Schrodinger to point out some of the fallacies of an early version of the theory of quantum mechanics. Rather than have me paraphrase it, I'll just repeat the paradox here:
A cat is placed in a sealed box. Attached to the box is an apparatus containing a radioactive atomic nucleus and a canister of poison gas. This apparatus is separated from the cat in such a way that the cat can in no way interfere with it. The experiment is set up so that there is exactly a 50% chance of the nucleus decaying in one hour. If the nucleus decays, it will emit a particle that triggers the apparatus, which opens the canister and kills the cat. If the nucleus does not decay, then the cat remains alive. According to quantum mechanics, the unobserved nucleus is described as a superposition (meaning it exists partly as each simultaneously) of "decayed nucleus" and "undecayed nucleus". However, when the box is opened the experimenter sees only a "decayed nucleus/dead cat" or an "undecayed nucleus/living cat."Given this explanation, my joke now becomes all the funnier. See, if Dennis is the one who opens the box and observes the cat then he's the one who collapses the wavefunction into either dead or alive and, in the case of dead, he'd be the one who "kills" the cat. Get it? I'll wait for you to finish laughing.
Now, in reality, a system need not be observed only by us humans, or something with senses, to be considered "observed", something Schrodinger knew and was trying to point out. In his paradox, the instrument that collects the radiation from the decayed particle would act as the observer and, as a result, would collapse the wave function down into the decayed nucleus/dead cat option. It would be pretty silly of us to think that we need be the observer in order for such a collapse to take place.
This brings us to the idea of decoherence. Decoherence is the mechanism by which a quantum system's information is "leaked" into the surrounding environment so that a situation like dead cat/alive cat combinations don't exist in any measureable way. In other words, it may appear that the wavefunction has collapsed, but in reality, we just can't measure the superposition of the wavefunctions. Clear as mud, right?
So, if we take our cat system into consideration again, what kind of "information" can leak into the environment should we discount the observational abilities of the geiger counter? Well, for one, the cat would certainly know if it were alive or dead. Second, if the cat were alive, the change in the surrounding environment due to the cat breathing would count as "observations". If the cat were dead, the various bacteria that live in the cat that can now start the process of decomposition would "observe" that the cat was dead, effectively collapsing the wave function. Decoherence tells us that for something like a cat in a box, there are just too many damn atomic particles, all getting tangled up with each other, that the uncertainty as to the state of these particles is effectively zero. The cat isn't in a state of death and life at the same time, it's either one or the other, we just don't know which one until we open the box. I realize that quantum physics isn't taking into consideration the Theory of Zomibification, in which an undead, zombie cat can exist as both alive and dead at the same time, but that's a discussion for another time.
Now, decoherence is interesting because if you can keep a particle's superposition of states going, even after being "observed" there are significant applications there for quantum computing. We won't get into it too much here, as it's a pretty deep topic, but if you can imagine how in "classical" computing, everything is based on ones and zeroes, you can only imagine how much computing power would increase if a particle could be made to be both a one and a zero at the same time. Jinkies!
So Dennis, in summary, I don't know if ol' Erwin's cat is dead or not, but, like before, I'm going to ask that you check, 'cause if he ain't, I'm sure that fucker is pissed.
Sources:
Wikipedia - Schrodinger's Cat
Wikipedia - Decoherence
Brad Marston - Killing Cats
John Boccio - "How Decoherence Kills Schrodinger's Cat"
Monday, August 14, 2006
A New Car!
As I mentioned last week, changes are afoot at Chez Cackowski-Schnell. One change, a rather big one, is that I have a new job. Yay for me. As a rule, I don't talk about employment things here, as I like being gainfully employed and wouldn't want something to be taken the wrong way and I end up out of doors. So, that's pretty much all you're going to get on the subject. Just to cover my ass, everyone I've ever worked for is fucking awesome. Please don't fire me.
When Linda and I moved here to beautiful Georgia one of the trinkets she dangled in front of me was a new car. And not just any car, but a Nissan 350Z. I've been in love with the Z since they redesigned and rereleased it. I downloaded wallpapers for our computer, ordered a free pack of cards from Nissan with various pictures of the Z on them, and generally lusted after the day when I would be able to rocket down the highway, inches above the ground, dangerously close to breaking various laws of both road and physics.
After a year in GA without need of a new roof, new siding, some sort bit of strange reconstructive surgery, or any other unforeseen bit of monetary outlay that can normally place a dent in one's finances, we realized that we had the money to purchase a new car. Oh yeah. So, armed with our package from Fighting Chance, a desire to buy and a need for speed, we commenced a blitzkrieg like attack on the local car dealerships. On Thursday night, our fruits bore labor and I sped home from the dealership in my new, shiny, 240 horsepower...Honda Odyssey.
Insert scratching record sound here.
I know, I know, a Honda Odyssey, a minivan by the way, is about as far from a Nissan 350Z as you can get and still be a form of automotive transportation however, in these situations, I find it best to rely on the joy of mathematics. You see, we all use numbers, some of us daily, and the equation to keep in mind here is 350Z + 2 seats = not enough seating for 2 adults + 2 kids + the family members who insist on coming to visit us. The Odyssey, on the other hand, has seating for roughly 3 dozen people, and something on the order of 195 cupholders. Oh, it also has a DVD player with 9 inch pulldown screen, XM radio and navigation system that can not only get you from home to the nearest Dairy Queen, but let you control the audio system, temperature controls, dvd player and the fucking clock with nothing but your wits and the mellifluous tones of your voice.
Now, buying a minivan made me confront a longstanding belief that I've had, namely that people who own minivans can't drive to save their fucking lives. Maybe because they're so big that I notice them cutting me off more than I would a normal size car. Maybe I was put off by their boxy appearance and couldn't see past the lack of aesthetics. Or maybe, just maybe, most of the people who drive minivans can't drive to save their fucking lives. I'm going with this last one, although notice that this time I added "most" as I am now among their accursed numbers and I know I can drive. I have a license from the state and everything.
As minivans go, it's pretty damn nice. It has some style on the outside, and the interior is pretty spacious and well laid out. I'm not kidding about the cup holders. There's something like 18 of them, which seems a bit excessive for a vehicle that can carry, at most, 8 people, and that's if most of them have some sort of eating disorder. Why you need each person riding in your vehicle to be able to have not just one, but a variety of beverages at their fingertips eludes me, but I'm happy to have the option.
The navigation system works well as a means of getting you from point A to point B unscathed, but not as well at directing you towards the nearest restaurant, home improvement store, or marina, as it seems to not be completely up to date as to the fine dining we have here in the soon-to-be town of Milton. When sitting in the parking lot of Lowe's Home Improvement store, the "home improvement" part being the most important, and asking the navigation system to find you the nearest home improvement store, it wants to send you 6 miles out of your way to Al's Shovel Emporium. Clearly, some updates are in order. Thankfully, I'm well aware of the location of the nearest Wendy's, so I don't need the system to point out those particular landmarks.
XM radio kicks ass, if for nothing but the ability to listen to filthy, filthy comedy as I drive to work. Not sure if I'll keep it after the free three months, as my new job is only 10 minutes from my house, a 75% reduction in commute time, so I'm not sure how much I'll need it. Then again, with everything this van has, we've pretty much taken "need" and thrown it right out the fucking window. Did I mention that there's a camera that shows you what's behind you when you put the van in reverse? See what I mean? Need comes nowhere close to this fucker.
The fax attack method espoused by Mr. Bragg at Fighting Chance is a work of fucking genius. If you are willing to spend $34.95 and maybe 2 hours of time reading the materials, putting together your faxes and sending the faxes off, you will be rewarded not only with a fantastic deal on a car, but with the satisfaction of bringing car salesmen to their knees. I hope that some day, you, dear reader, have the opportunity to feel the joy that comes from hanging up on a car salesman after you all but point out that his spurious line of bullshit will do nothing to get you to buy a car from him. It is a moment constructed from sunlight and babies' laughter and it flits aloft on gossamer wings.
When the dust had settled, we ended up paying somewhere between 1400 and 800 under invoice, depending on how much all the aftermarket parts cost the dealer, and not the bullshit invoice price the dealer tells you, but the real invoice price. All of this without having to set foot into the dealership except to test drive and sign the paperwork. Booyah.
Now, the realization that I was going to be minivan owners was not one that was welcomed with open arms however there comes a time in every person's life when they have to take stock in who they are and where they are in their lives. I'm not a cool person. I've never been one and most likely will never be one. Trying to change this by means of a car, even a car as glorious as the 350Z is an exercise in futility. I am reminded of the pig, who, upon donning a summertime frock, finds themeselves still positively porcine. No, me buying a car won't make me cool, so I might as well buy something that's going to be as useful as possible, especially if I'm going to drop as much on it as this thing cost. Besides, all thoughts of cool are put aside when I consider that I can have sex with my wife in the back of the van while "Butch Walker live in Budokan" plays on the DVD player. I'll take that over cool any day.
When Linda and I moved here to beautiful Georgia one of the trinkets she dangled in front of me was a new car. And not just any car, but a Nissan 350Z. I've been in love with the Z since they redesigned and rereleased it. I downloaded wallpapers for our computer, ordered a free pack of cards from Nissan with various pictures of the Z on them, and generally lusted after the day when I would be able to rocket down the highway, inches above the ground, dangerously close to breaking various laws of both road and physics.
After a year in GA without need of a new roof, new siding, some sort bit of strange reconstructive surgery, or any other unforeseen bit of monetary outlay that can normally place a dent in one's finances, we realized that we had the money to purchase a new car. Oh yeah. So, armed with our package from Fighting Chance, a desire to buy and a need for speed, we commenced a blitzkrieg like attack on the local car dealerships. On Thursday night, our fruits bore labor and I sped home from the dealership in my new, shiny, 240 horsepower...Honda Odyssey.
Insert scratching record sound here.
I know, I know, a Honda Odyssey, a minivan by the way, is about as far from a Nissan 350Z as you can get and still be a form of automotive transportation however, in these situations, I find it best to rely on the joy of mathematics. You see, we all use numbers, some of us daily, and the equation to keep in mind here is 350Z + 2 seats = not enough seating for 2 adults + 2 kids + the family members who insist on coming to visit us. The Odyssey, on the other hand, has seating for roughly 3 dozen people, and something on the order of 195 cupholders. Oh, it also has a DVD player with 9 inch pulldown screen, XM radio and navigation system that can not only get you from home to the nearest Dairy Queen, but let you control the audio system, temperature controls, dvd player and the fucking clock with nothing but your wits and the mellifluous tones of your voice.
Now, buying a minivan made me confront a longstanding belief that I've had, namely that people who own minivans can't drive to save their fucking lives. Maybe because they're so big that I notice them cutting me off more than I would a normal size car. Maybe I was put off by their boxy appearance and couldn't see past the lack of aesthetics. Or maybe, just maybe, most of the people who drive minivans can't drive to save their fucking lives. I'm going with this last one, although notice that this time I added "most" as I am now among their accursed numbers and I know I can drive. I have a license from the state and everything.
As minivans go, it's pretty damn nice. It has some style on the outside, and the interior is pretty spacious and well laid out. I'm not kidding about the cup holders. There's something like 18 of them, which seems a bit excessive for a vehicle that can carry, at most, 8 people, and that's if most of them have some sort of eating disorder. Why you need each person riding in your vehicle to be able to have not just one, but a variety of beverages at their fingertips eludes me, but I'm happy to have the option.
The navigation system works well as a means of getting you from point A to point B unscathed, but not as well at directing you towards the nearest restaurant, home improvement store, or marina, as it seems to not be completely up to date as to the fine dining we have here in the soon-to-be town of Milton. When sitting in the parking lot of Lowe's Home Improvement store, the "home improvement" part being the most important, and asking the navigation system to find you the nearest home improvement store, it wants to send you 6 miles out of your way to Al's Shovel Emporium. Clearly, some updates are in order. Thankfully, I'm well aware of the location of the nearest Wendy's, so I don't need the system to point out those particular landmarks.
XM radio kicks ass, if for nothing but the ability to listen to filthy, filthy comedy as I drive to work. Not sure if I'll keep it after the free three months, as my new job is only 10 minutes from my house, a 75% reduction in commute time, so I'm not sure how much I'll need it. Then again, with everything this van has, we've pretty much taken "need" and thrown it right out the fucking window. Did I mention that there's a camera that shows you what's behind you when you put the van in reverse? See what I mean? Need comes nowhere close to this fucker.
The fax attack method espoused by Mr. Bragg at Fighting Chance is a work of fucking genius. If you are willing to spend $34.95 and maybe 2 hours of time reading the materials, putting together your faxes and sending the faxes off, you will be rewarded not only with a fantastic deal on a car, but with the satisfaction of bringing car salesmen to their knees. I hope that some day, you, dear reader, have the opportunity to feel the joy that comes from hanging up on a car salesman after you all but point out that his spurious line of bullshit will do nothing to get you to buy a car from him. It is a moment constructed from sunlight and babies' laughter and it flits aloft on gossamer wings.
When the dust had settled, we ended up paying somewhere between 1400 and 800 under invoice, depending on how much all the aftermarket parts cost the dealer, and not the bullshit invoice price the dealer tells you, but the real invoice price. All of this without having to set foot into the dealership except to test drive and sign the paperwork. Booyah.
Now, the realization that I was going to be minivan owners was not one that was welcomed with open arms however there comes a time in every person's life when they have to take stock in who they are and where they are in their lives. I'm not a cool person. I've never been one and most likely will never be one. Trying to change this by means of a car, even a car as glorious as the 350Z is an exercise in futility. I am reminded of the pig, who, upon donning a summertime frock, finds themeselves still positively porcine. No, me buying a car won't make me cool, so I might as well buy something that's going to be as useful as possible, especially if I'm going to drop as much on it as this thing cost. Besides, all thoughts of cool are put aside when I consider that I can have sex with my wife in the back of the van while "Butch Walker live in Budokan" plays on the DVD player. I'll take that over cool any day.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Maybe, maybe not
Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. Changes are afoot at the house and as a result, spare time is at a minimum. I'm not going to make any promises for posts this week so you're on your own. Don't worry, once everything is settled I shall return with glorious tales of high adventure! Huzzah!
Friday, August 04, 2006
I Wanna Rock
Today's gaming post continues our current trend of commenting on games everyone else has already played, loved and talked about to death as we delve into the rocking world of Guitar Hero.
I'm going to put something out here that may seem odd at first, given how much time we, as gamers, spend gaming, but hear me out and I think you'll agree. As much as we enjoy playing games, and putting our virtual counterparts through their paces, with few exceptions, we don't really want to be those people. Think about it. God of War is fun to play, but who in their right mind would want to be Kratos, he of the chain seared arms, skin permanently covered with the ashes of his family, murdered by his own hand? I love playing GRAW, but I usually end up either shot by a latin american rebel, shot by Andy, or blown up by my own grenade. None of these appeal to me. Zelda is a blast, but who wants to have to use huge jars as a means of getting from one place to another? Not me. Even Splinter Cell seems like it'd be a real hoot to live through until you have to spend 15 minutes flattened against the Pepsi machine because the patrolling guard can't decide between Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew Code Red.
Sports and racing games are exception to this rule, as I know plenty of people who would want to either score the game winning touchdown or tear through the streets of Las Vegas in their souped up Esprit. To that list of exceptions I would add Guitar Hero. In fact, I would place it at the top of that list, because for my money, the only thing I want to do in a stadium, is rock it the fuck out.
The reason Guitar Hero works so well in this regard is the controller. There is no way, with the best of controllers, that pressing a button can make you feel even remotely like you have just put some guard in a headlock. There is no trigger on any gamepad that can make you feel like you just put a round of buckshot into a marauding alien. The disconnect between the controller and the things we're controlling in games is just too wide. Not so with Guitar Hero. Yes it's a smaller, infinitely simpler guitar, but it is a guitar. You strap it on like a guitar, you plug it in to your PS2 with a long cord like a guitar and you strum it and hit the whammy bar like a guitar. Yes, you feel like an idiot for the first 5 seconds but then the opening chords of "I Wanna Be Sedated" come out of your speakers, by your own hand no less, and those feeling evaporate. It is as if the Gods of Rock have come to Earth, been made plastic and placed in your waiting arms. You want to rock and no one, not even Doug Neidermeyer can keep you from doing so.
Before we go further, a little background on me. I have loved music for as long as I can remember. I used to have this Eric Clapton tape, tape 2 from the Crossroads set, that I listened to every day on my way to and from good old Albany High School. It was, in my opinion, the best tape in the set, nay, the best tape in creation, as it started with his work with Cream, moving to Blind Faith, Bonnie and Delaney, some solo stuff, and ending with some of his work with Derek and the Dominoes. The Cream version of Crossroads, was my personal favorite. I knew every goddamned note of that song, and would play it, rewind it, play it, rewind it, play it, rewind it, just so that I could feel like me and my air guitar were laying it down.
Imagine my surprise when decades later, I get to the final set list of songs in Guitar Hero (Easy level anyways) and what song is the final song in the list, but my good friend Crossroads. The first time I played the song, I was so amazed that this was the song, the song that I had dreamt about rocking out too so long ago, that I completely fucked it up. I then stopped, gathered my cool, walked out on that stage like I fucking owned it, because I did, and me and my axe tore that shit up. Tore. That. Shit. Up. 5 stars, 98% complete, boom. Granted, it was on Easy, but the feeling was so amazing, the memories of walking to school dreaming about playing those notes in front of an audience were so real, that it ceased being a game and started being something that makes dreams come true. I know it sounds stupid, but lets be honest. I am 34 years old. The chances of me learning guitar, learning that song and playing it in front of an audience of people are so remote, this is the closest thing I have. I will gladly take it.
For those of you haven't played the game, this will probably sound silly. How much can it possibly be like the real thing? More than words can possibly express. You start off trying to figure out just what buttons need to be pressed and when. Next thing you know you're playing "Infected" by Bad Religion over and over because it's just that much fun, and you can learn it well enough to not just walk around while playing, but strut and swagger. The connection between you, the controller and the song is so strong, that I defy anyone to finish playing Hendrix's "Spanish Castle Magic" and not drop to one's knees, place their controller in front of them and pretend that their guitar is on fire.
The song selection is top notch, with classics like "Iron Man", "Ace of Spades", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Smoke on the Water" on the set list with newer songs like Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out", The Donna's "Take it Off" and "Higher Ground" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There are some notable admissions for a game that rocks so strongly, however I can understand some bands not wanting to license their songs for a game, not knowing how the final product would come out.
Now that the game has caught on and bands can see how good it is, I'd like to see these omissions rectified, one of which, the most glaring one at that, can be summed up in two words: Led Zeppelin. It is an undisputed fact that Led Zeppelin rocked harder than any other band in rock and roll, either before their arrival or since their departure. Board certified, independent Rockologists have measured the amount that Led Zeppelin rocked and have determined that no other band rocks or rocked nearly as hard. I am an openminded person, and will gladly take alternate viewpoints on a variety of subjects, weighing them against my own opinions and experiences, however anyone who would dispute the amount that Led Zeppelin rocks would have their opinions classified by me as those of a raving lunatic, on the order of someone who would deny the existence of water.
Cast your mind over the vast expanse of Led Zeppelin's catalog, and you will come up with fistfuls of songs that would cause a near cataclysmic amount of personal rocking should they appear in Guitar Hero 2. "Whole Lotta Love"? Rock. "The Ocean"? Rock. "Rock and Roll", "Heartbreaker", "I Can't Quit You Babe", fucking "Immigrant Song"? Rock, rock, r to the o-c-k, rock. Only by playing these songs, and somehow plugging into Led Zeppelin's infinite capacity to rock, can our own rock capacity be elevated.
Now some may not be able to handle how much Led Zeppelin rocks and as such will be unworthy to be touched by the fingers of the Gods of Rock. I am not one of those people. To the Gods I say this, I will rock any time, any place, for any length of time, be it the short, blistering length of "Immigant Song" or the long, episodic rock out that is "Kashmir" or "In My Time of Dying". Bring the rock, oh Gods of Rock, bring it to me in the form of Led Zeppelin songs and I will carry your glory forth for all to hear. If, on the other hand, licensing issues don't work out, I'd be happy with The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", Aerosmith's "Train Kept A Rollin'" or Ozzy's "Crazy Train". You know, whatever works.
Should Guitar Hero come to the 360, and the notion of downloadable song packs becomes a reality, I will rock out indefinitely, until this world is nothing dust and memories. Imagine, song packs becoming available as licensing issues get worked out. 5 Who songs for 10 bucks? Um, yes please. The ability to extend the life of this game would achieve Oblivion like proportions. Plus, how cool would a wireless guitar controller be? Wicked cool.
So, thank you Red Octane, for letting a young, lanky lad from upstate New York realize his dreams of rocking out. Thank you for giving me a reason to love music even more, even if it is balanced by momentary bouts of blazing hatred for Queens of the Stone Age. Stupid "No One Knows".
I'm going to put something out here that may seem odd at first, given how much time we, as gamers, spend gaming, but hear me out and I think you'll agree. As much as we enjoy playing games, and putting our virtual counterparts through their paces, with few exceptions, we don't really want to be those people. Think about it. God of War is fun to play, but who in their right mind would want to be Kratos, he of the chain seared arms, skin permanently covered with the ashes of his family, murdered by his own hand? I love playing GRAW, but I usually end up either shot by a latin american rebel, shot by Andy, or blown up by my own grenade. None of these appeal to me. Zelda is a blast, but who wants to have to use huge jars as a means of getting from one place to another? Not me. Even Splinter Cell seems like it'd be a real hoot to live through until you have to spend 15 minutes flattened against the Pepsi machine because the patrolling guard can't decide between Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew Code Red.
Sports and racing games are exception to this rule, as I know plenty of people who would want to either score the game winning touchdown or tear through the streets of Las Vegas in their souped up Esprit. To that list of exceptions I would add Guitar Hero. In fact, I would place it at the top of that list, because for my money, the only thing I want to do in a stadium, is rock it the fuck out.
The reason Guitar Hero works so well in this regard is the controller. There is no way, with the best of controllers, that pressing a button can make you feel even remotely like you have just put some guard in a headlock. There is no trigger on any gamepad that can make you feel like you just put a round of buckshot into a marauding alien. The disconnect between the controller and the things we're controlling in games is just too wide. Not so with Guitar Hero. Yes it's a smaller, infinitely simpler guitar, but it is a guitar. You strap it on like a guitar, you plug it in to your PS2 with a long cord like a guitar and you strum it and hit the whammy bar like a guitar. Yes, you feel like an idiot for the first 5 seconds but then the opening chords of "I Wanna Be Sedated" come out of your speakers, by your own hand no less, and those feeling evaporate. It is as if the Gods of Rock have come to Earth, been made plastic and placed in your waiting arms. You want to rock and no one, not even Doug Neidermeyer can keep you from doing so.
Before we go further, a little background on me. I have loved music for as long as I can remember. I used to have this Eric Clapton tape, tape 2 from the Crossroads set, that I listened to every day on my way to and from good old Albany High School. It was, in my opinion, the best tape in the set, nay, the best tape in creation, as it started with his work with Cream, moving to Blind Faith, Bonnie and Delaney, some solo stuff, and ending with some of his work with Derek and the Dominoes. The Cream version of Crossroads, was my personal favorite. I knew every goddamned note of that song, and would play it, rewind it, play it, rewind it, play it, rewind it, just so that I could feel like me and my air guitar were laying it down.
Imagine my surprise when decades later, I get to the final set list of songs in Guitar Hero (Easy level anyways) and what song is the final song in the list, but my good friend Crossroads. The first time I played the song, I was so amazed that this was the song, the song that I had dreamt about rocking out too so long ago, that I completely fucked it up. I then stopped, gathered my cool, walked out on that stage like I fucking owned it, because I did, and me and my axe tore that shit up. Tore. That. Shit. Up. 5 stars, 98% complete, boom. Granted, it was on Easy, but the feeling was so amazing, the memories of walking to school dreaming about playing those notes in front of an audience were so real, that it ceased being a game and started being something that makes dreams come true. I know it sounds stupid, but lets be honest. I am 34 years old. The chances of me learning guitar, learning that song and playing it in front of an audience of people are so remote, this is the closest thing I have. I will gladly take it.
For those of you haven't played the game, this will probably sound silly. How much can it possibly be like the real thing? More than words can possibly express. You start off trying to figure out just what buttons need to be pressed and when. Next thing you know you're playing "Infected" by Bad Religion over and over because it's just that much fun, and you can learn it well enough to not just walk around while playing, but strut and swagger. The connection between you, the controller and the song is so strong, that I defy anyone to finish playing Hendrix's "Spanish Castle Magic" and not drop to one's knees, place their controller in front of them and pretend that their guitar is on fire.
The song selection is top notch, with classics like "Iron Man", "Ace of Spades", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Smoke on the Water" on the set list with newer songs like Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out", The Donna's "Take it Off" and "Higher Ground" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There are some notable admissions for a game that rocks so strongly, however I can understand some bands not wanting to license their songs for a game, not knowing how the final product would come out.
Now that the game has caught on and bands can see how good it is, I'd like to see these omissions rectified, one of which, the most glaring one at that, can be summed up in two words: Led Zeppelin. It is an undisputed fact that Led Zeppelin rocked harder than any other band in rock and roll, either before their arrival or since their departure. Board certified, independent Rockologists have measured the amount that Led Zeppelin rocked and have determined that no other band rocks or rocked nearly as hard. I am an openminded person, and will gladly take alternate viewpoints on a variety of subjects, weighing them against my own opinions and experiences, however anyone who would dispute the amount that Led Zeppelin rocks would have their opinions classified by me as those of a raving lunatic, on the order of someone who would deny the existence of water.
Cast your mind over the vast expanse of Led Zeppelin's catalog, and you will come up with fistfuls of songs that would cause a near cataclysmic amount of personal rocking should they appear in Guitar Hero 2. "Whole Lotta Love"? Rock. "The Ocean"? Rock. "Rock and Roll", "Heartbreaker", "I Can't Quit You Babe", fucking "Immigrant Song"? Rock, rock, r to the o-c-k, rock. Only by playing these songs, and somehow plugging into Led Zeppelin's infinite capacity to rock, can our own rock capacity be elevated.
Now some may not be able to handle how much Led Zeppelin rocks and as such will be unworthy to be touched by the fingers of the Gods of Rock. I am not one of those people. To the Gods I say this, I will rock any time, any place, for any length of time, be it the short, blistering length of "Immigant Song" or the long, episodic rock out that is "Kashmir" or "In My Time of Dying". Bring the rock, oh Gods of Rock, bring it to me in the form of Led Zeppelin songs and I will carry your glory forth for all to hear. If, on the other hand, licensing issues don't work out, I'd be happy with The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", Aerosmith's "Train Kept A Rollin'" or Ozzy's "Crazy Train". You know, whatever works.
Should Guitar Hero come to the 360, and the notion of downloadable song packs becomes a reality, I will rock out indefinitely, until this world is nothing dust and memories. Imagine, song packs becoming available as licensing issues get worked out. 5 Who songs for 10 bucks? Um, yes please. The ability to extend the life of this game would achieve Oblivion like proportions. Plus, how cool would a wireless guitar controller be? Wicked cool.
So, thank you Red Octane, for letting a young, lanky lad from upstate New York realize his dreams of rocking out. Thank you for giving me a reason to love music even more, even if it is balanced by momentary bouts of blazing hatred for Queens of the Stone Age. Stupid "No One Knows".
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Electricity, E-lec-tricity!
Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back. As you can see, I have gotten my shit together enough to post today. Yay me. It remains to be seen if it will be any good, but it's this or nothing, so take your pick.
Today's question comes from Ever Curious Andy who asks:
Electric eels use electricity for everything, navigation, communication, eating and powering their homes. Just kidding on that last one. The electric eel doesn't "breathe", using their gills to extract oxygen from the water, as other fish do. Instead the electric eel's mouth is used to extract oxygen by gulping air above the water's surface. As a result of this, having a spiny, moving fish in their mouth would most likely damage their mouths to the point where they could no longer breathe. In order for the electric eel to swallow their prey whole, they need to either a) come up behind it all stealthy like and swallow it quickly, or b) zap the hell out of it and swallow the incapacitated thing. Usually they choose the latter.
To accomplish this, the electric eel has a combination of three electrical organs which take up roughly 4/5 of their bodies. One of these organs is used to generate a low level electric field used for navigation and locating prey. The other two are used to generate the pulse used to incapacitate prey and keep their George Foreman grill hot and ready to make burgers.
The two other electrical organs consist of thousand of electrocytes. Each electrocyte acts as a small battery, capable of generating about .15 volts. These electrocytes are stacked in series, like the batteries in your flashlight, such that the positive end of the battery is at the head of the eel and the negative end is at the tail. Now, .15 volts might not seem like a lot, but when 4000 of them all fire at the same time, the resulting shock is on the order of 600 volts, which is more than enough to make for a very bad day for you or I.
Rather than rephrase exactly how these cells work to generate a charge, I'll quote here:
Now, why the eel doesn't end up a deep fried specimen as a result of this, no one seems to know. Some folks seem to think that the eel does get shocked, but that the eel's location relative to where the shock is in the water keeps it from getting too shocked. Other ideas are that the eel's thick, course skin insulates it from the shock. One source I read mentioned that an eel with severely damaged skin will eventually shock itself to death, however I couldn't find anything else to back this up, and the fact that eels will drown if they don't gulp air enough makes me wonder if this particular eel's demise can be attributed solely to a poorly defined skin care regiment.
I can say, that from an evolutionary standpoint, if the electric eel did shock itself every time it went to eat, it would have died out long before you or I emerged from the muck and started discussing it. From a survival of the fittest perspective, any species that incapacitates itself when it tries to eat ain't sticking around for dessert. Uncle Larry's post-Thanksgiving dinner unconsciousness doesn't count.
For those of you who are thinking that the electric eel would make a fantastic pet, look elsewhere. The electric eel will pretty much shock anything that comes near it, so should you ever need to handle Li'l Sparky, you may find large gaps in your memory that just happen to coincide with when you tried to clean the eel tank. Better you should stick to goldfish.
Sources:
Melissa Ingalls - Electric Eel
University of Bristol - The Electric Eel, T. Riis-Johannessen
Who Zoo - The Electric Eel, LaTasha Cormier
Scientific American.com - Ask the Experts: Biology
Today's question comes from Ever Curious Andy who asks:
How do electric eels generate a voltage and why do they not get shocked in the process?An interesting question, especially for anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of one of those shocks. From what I've read, they can be quite painful, possibly lethal. But first, a clarification. Electric Eels, or Electrophorus electricus, isn't actually an eel, it's an eel shaped fish. It is the strongest of the electricity producing fish which also include electric catfish and torpedo rays.
Electric eels use electricity for everything, navigation, communication, eating and powering their homes. Just kidding on that last one. The electric eel doesn't "breathe", using their gills to extract oxygen from the water, as other fish do. Instead the electric eel's mouth is used to extract oxygen by gulping air above the water's surface. As a result of this, having a spiny, moving fish in their mouth would most likely damage their mouths to the point where they could no longer breathe. In order for the electric eel to swallow their prey whole, they need to either a) come up behind it all stealthy like and swallow it quickly, or b) zap the hell out of it and swallow the incapacitated thing. Usually they choose the latter.
To accomplish this, the electric eel has a combination of three electrical organs which take up roughly 4/5 of their bodies. One of these organs is used to generate a low level electric field used for navigation and locating prey. The other two are used to generate the pulse used to incapacitate prey and keep their George Foreman grill hot and ready to make burgers.
The two other electrical organs consist of thousand of electrocytes. Each electrocyte acts as a small battery, capable of generating about .15 volts. These electrocytes are stacked in series, like the batteries in your flashlight, such that the positive end of the battery is at the head of the eel and the negative end is at the tail. Now, .15 volts might not seem like a lot, but when 4000 of them all fire at the same time, the resulting shock is on the order of 600 volts, which is more than enough to make for a very bad day for you or I.
Rather than rephrase exactly how these cells work to generate a charge, I'll quote here:
In order for the pulse to be effective the eel needs to discharge all of its electrocytes at the same time. This is accomplished as a result of a combination of longer neural connections to the electrocytes closer to the head and thinner neurons which slow down the neural activity. In other words, the signal from the eel's brain to the electrocytes closer to the head are slowed down so that they arrive at the same time as the signals going to the eel's tail. As a result, all cells fire at the same time and boom goes the dynamite.At rest, the Na+K+ pump, concentration and electrical gradient keeps the inside of the electrocyte at a resting potential of .08 volt. When the electric eel electrolocates its prey, the brain sends a signal through the nervous system to the electric organs. Acetylcholine is dropped onto the electrocyte which binds to the corresponding receptor on the ion. This opens the ion channels of the cell, allowing Na+ to rush in. The cell then depolarizes, momentarily reversing the charge, and fires. - Melissa Engalls, Electric Eel
Now, why the eel doesn't end up a deep fried specimen as a result of this, no one seems to know. Some folks seem to think that the eel does get shocked, but that the eel's location relative to where the shock is in the water keeps it from getting too shocked. Other ideas are that the eel's thick, course skin insulates it from the shock. One source I read mentioned that an eel with severely damaged skin will eventually shock itself to death, however I couldn't find anything else to back this up, and the fact that eels will drown if they don't gulp air enough makes me wonder if this particular eel's demise can be attributed solely to a poorly defined skin care regiment.
I can say, that from an evolutionary standpoint, if the electric eel did shock itself every time it went to eat, it would have died out long before you or I emerged from the muck and started discussing it. From a survival of the fittest perspective, any species that incapacitates itself when it tries to eat ain't sticking around for dessert. Uncle Larry's post-Thanksgiving dinner unconsciousness doesn't count.
For those of you who are thinking that the electric eel would make a fantastic pet, look elsewhere. The electric eel will pretty much shock anything that comes near it, so should you ever need to handle Li'l Sparky, you may find large gaps in your memory that just happen to coincide with when you tried to clean the eel tank. Better you should stick to goldfish.
Sources:
Melissa Ingalls - Electric Eel
University of Bristol - The Electric Eel, T. Riis-Johannessen
Who Zoo - The Electric Eel, LaTasha Cormier
Scientific American.com - Ask the Experts: Biology
Monday, July 31, 2006
The Road to Milton is Paved With Suck
Before we get started, I should point out that I stole this post's title from Bill Harris's hilarious post "The Road to Shreveport Is Paved With Suck", an article about his family's annual trip to Louisiana to visit his wife's family. At the time, it was hosted on GoneGold.com, but Gone Gold has since evaporated. I tried looking at Bill's personal site, Dubious Quality, but alas, I could not find it. Perhaps if we all email him, he'll post it again. On that note, happy birthday to Bill's son Eli, who has just completed an upgrade to version 5.0.
One tick after midnight on December 1st, 2006 the missus and I will no longer live in unincorporated Fulton County, GA and will instead live in the newly formed town of Milton. In the July 18th elections, in which a) about 4 people showed up and b) 3 of them did not vote for Ralph Reed, a referendum was voted on to further carve up Fulton County and make part of it, the part we live in, the city of Milton. Linda is not happy.
Allow me to explain. When we first started researching where in Atlanta we wanted to live, she came upon the glorious town of Alpharetta. The houses looked so nice, there were parks and shopping places, and a general rosy sense of goodwill and peace on Earth. When we visited the area, to determine if we wanted to live here, we found that the streets of Alpharetta were paved with gold, that bluebirds sang and rainbows cascaded from on high. OK, that's an exaggeration, but we did very much like the town and wanted to live in it. How fortuitous that when we found a house, we found one in Alpharetta. Or did we? Bum-bum-bum!
As it turns out, we did not. We found a house in unincorporated Fulton County that just happened to be close enough to Alpharetta to have Alpharetta as the city for postal purposes. Note I said postal purposes. For any and all other governmental services we're either serviced by the county or the state. No city government for us. This idea apparantly bothered people so they rallied together to get our little neck of the woods made into a city, the city of Milton.
According to the referendum's supporters, Fulton County sucks and because it's so damn long (70+ miles long) there's no guarantee that the money collected by taxes in our area is actually spent in our area. Instead, there's a high chance that it's spent in South Fulton county, a noticeably less affluent area. Add to this the comments made after the referendum was passed that the Republicans in our neck of the woods were annoyed with being constantly ignored by the mostly Democratic members of the county government and my bullshitometer starts blaring.
Linda was opposed to this new city from the get-go, mostly because of the name, a fact that I mock her about at any given opportunity. According to her, no one will know about the city of Milton, but people know what Alpharetta is, and associate it with nice houses, so a name change will only bring our property values down. I find this reasoning somewhat flawed as she forgets the fact that all of the time we lived in Ashburn, our property values only went up and for most of that time, there was a step in the directions to our house that directed travelers to "Take a left at the burned out bank." When we first moved to Ashburn, no one knew where it was. When we left, maybe 3 people knew where it was, and 2 of them (us) were leaving, yet we sold our house for more than double what we paid for. It won't take time for people to learn that we live in a nice place, and there are plenty of nice places around us. Plus, Milton is already talked about as a "rural" area and rural = land, which should attract some cashola.
Her other reason for not wanting us to become Milton, and I agree with her on this one, was that the referendum supporters never gave a good reason for turning us into a new city. Basically, their talking points were something like "Fulton County sucks" and "If we're our own city, you'll have a local government to represent you." My take on this is that a) I haven't seen anything indicating that Fulton County is any worse or better than any other county I've lived in since emerging on this fine planet and b) just because you have a local government to represent you, it doesn't mean it's going to be any good. The city government may end up being just as useless and impotent as the county government. In fact, me being a Democrat, I'd say we just took a step backwards. I also find it odd that this was a push from Republicans, which has traditionally been the party of less, not more, government. Oh well, I guess if you don't like how things are done, rather than try and mobilize voters and getting your own people elected, you can just create your own layer of government to deal with things. If this new government starts making shitty decisions I'm going to become my own town of Brandonia Heights, population 4.
Add to this the fact that once the county isn't on the hook to provide us with services like police and fire protection, we'll all have to pay for it. And how do you think they'll do that? Certainly not with bake sales and raffles, but with higher taxes. I guess it's ok to spend more money on taxes as long as that money isn't going to those filthy, filthy poor people. Curse them and their shitty roads! Personally, I hope to never use the services of either the police or the fire brigade so I was fine with paying less for them to deal with my neighbors to the south.
In the long run, I'm sure it won't make much of a difference to us, other than having to get new address labels and checks, something that also bothers Linda to no end. Sure, our taxes will go up, but I'm sure they would have gone up for something else at some point anyway. What this does do is give me the opportunity to do something I've always wanted to do, namely run for public office. This new town is going to need someone to run it and I'm just the man to do it. I'm thinking Sherrif, but only if I can beat people up in the thoroughfare and/or shoot them. I'm also thinking of running for the office of Commisioner of Personal Transportation. People in my neighborhood use golf carts to get around the neighborhood, despite the fact that you can walk from one end of the development to the other in less than 20 minutes. My first act as Commissioner would be to ban all golf carts for personal, non-golfing use. Then we'll see how they like their new government. Granted this would be an entirely new appointment, of my own creation, but as this whole exercise has shown us, if your government isn't doing what you want it to do, simply create a new level and use it to get things done. My slogan can be "Cackowski-Schnell for Commissioner, Because You Need a Democrat Somewhere Around Here". Remember, a vote for Cackowsk-Schnell is a vote for sausage!
One tick after midnight on December 1st, 2006 the missus and I will no longer live in unincorporated Fulton County, GA and will instead live in the newly formed town of Milton. In the July 18th elections, in which a) about 4 people showed up and b) 3 of them did not vote for Ralph Reed, a referendum was voted on to further carve up Fulton County and make part of it, the part we live in, the city of Milton. Linda is not happy.
Allow me to explain. When we first started researching where in Atlanta we wanted to live, she came upon the glorious town of Alpharetta. The houses looked so nice, there were parks and shopping places, and a general rosy sense of goodwill and peace on Earth. When we visited the area, to determine if we wanted to live here, we found that the streets of Alpharetta were paved with gold, that bluebirds sang and rainbows cascaded from on high. OK, that's an exaggeration, but we did very much like the town and wanted to live in it. How fortuitous that when we found a house, we found one in Alpharetta. Or did we? Bum-bum-bum!
As it turns out, we did not. We found a house in unincorporated Fulton County that just happened to be close enough to Alpharetta to have Alpharetta as the city for postal purposes. Note I said postal purposes. For any and all other governmental services we're either serviced by the county or the state. No city government for us. This idea apparantly bothered people so they rallied together to get our little neck of the woods made into a city, the city of Milton.
According to the referendum's supporters, Fulton County sucks and because it's so damn long (70+ miles long) there's no guarantee that the money collected by taxes in our area is actually spent in our area. Instead, there's a high chance that it's spent in South Fulton county, a noticeably less affluent area. Add to this the comments made after the referendum was passed that the Republicans in our neck of the woods were annoyed with being constantly ignored by the mostly Democratic members of the county government and my bullshitometer starts blaring.
Linda was opposed to this new city from the get-go, mostly because of the name, a fact that I mock her about at any given opportunity. According to her, no one will know about the city of Milton, but people know what Alpharetta is, and associate it with nice houses, so a name change will only bring our property values down. I find this reasoning somewhat flawed as she forgets the fact that all of the time we lived in Ashburn, our property values only went up and for most of that time, there was a step in the directions to our house that directed travelers to "Take a left at the burned out bank." When we first moved to Ashburn, no one knew where it was. When we left, maybe 3 people knew where it was, and 2 of them (us) were leaving, yet we sold our house for more than double what we paid for. It won't take time for people to learn that we live in a nice place, and there are plenty of nice places around us. Plus, Milton is already talked about as a "rural" area and rural = land, which should attract some cashola.
Her other reason for not wanting us to become Milton, and I agree with her on this one, was that the referendum supporters never gave a good reason for turning us into a new city. Basically, their talking points were something like "Fulton County sucks" and "If we're our own city, you'll have a local government to represent you." My take on this is that a) I haven't seen anything indicating that Fulton County is any worse or better than any other county I've lived in since emerging on this fine planet and b) just because you have a local government to represent you, it doesn't mean it's going to be any good. The city government may end up being just as useless and impotent as the county government. In fact, me being a Democrat, I'd say we just took a step backwards. I also find it odd that this was a push from Republicans, which has traditionally been the party of less, not more, government. Oh well, I guess if you don't like how things are done, rather than try and mobilize voters and getting your own people elected, you can just create your own layer of government to deal with things. If this new government starts making shitty decisions I'm going to become my own town of Brandonia Heights, population 4.
Add to this the fact that once the county isn't on the hook to provide us with services like police and fire protection, we'll all have to pay for it. And how do you think they'll do that? Certainly not with bake sales and raffles, but with higher taxes. I guess it's ok to spend more money on taxes as long as that money isn't going to those filthy, filthy poor people. Curse them and their shitty roads! Personally, I hope to never use the services of either the police or the fire brigade so I was fine with paying less for them to deal with my neighbors to the south.
In the long run, I'm sure it won't make much of a difference to us, other than having to get new address labels and checks, something that also bothers Linda to no end. Sure, our taxes will go up, but I'm sure they would have gone up for something else at some point anyway. What this does do is give me the opportunity to do something I've always wanted to do, namely run for public office. This new town is going to need someone to run it and I'm just the man to do it. I'm thinking Sherrif, but only if I can beat people up in the thoroughfare and/or shoot them. I'm also thinking of running for the office of Commisioner of Personal Transportation. People in my neighborhood use golf carts to get around the neighborhood, despite the fact that you can walk from one end of the development to the other in less than 20 minutes. My first act as Commissioner would be to ban all golf carts for personal, non-golfing use. Then we'll see how they like their new government. Granted this would be an entirely new appointment, of my own creation, but as this whole exercise has shown us, if your government isn't doing what you want it to do, simply create a new level and use it to get things done. My slogan can be "Cackowski-Schnell for Commissioner, Because You Need a Democrat Somewhere Around Here". Remember, a vote for Cackowsk-Schnell is a vote for sausage!
Friday, July 28, 2006
More Fun with Oblivion
Seeing how it's Friday, I feel obligated to speak of gaming, and I will, however I hope you would allow me some latitude to discuss other topics. Yes? Excellent.
I purchased the new Tom Petty cd on Tuesday. It is an excellent piece of musical craftmanship, as usual. Mr. Petty does fine, fine work with the Heartbreakers, however with the exception of the "She's the One" soundtrack, I prefer his solo stuff. It is easy to dismiss his personal music as sounding like his work with the Heartbreakers, due to the distinctive nature of his voice, but I can assure you, it is quite different. More mellow, more layered, a more personal approach to music. Good stuff.
All week I've been reading the transcripts from the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, which was when some parents sued the Dover school district after the Board voted to allow the entry of Intelligent Design into the high school biology curriculum. Now, I have absolutely no intention of getting into a discussion about Intelligent Design here. I will certainly share my opinion on the subject with you should you want to contact me directly (suburbanjoe at gmail dot com) however I like to keep things casual and jokey here and a discussion of that nature can very easily turn into so very not casual and so very not jokey. Anyway, the court transcripts are very, very interesting and make for good reading and showcase, as the presiding judge mentioned, excellent lawyering. The amount of research done and the level of preparedness of the counsel on both sides was amazing.
We have new furniture in our family room. Well, not all of it, as the couch is MIA. We hope to have this remedied tomorrow. This has been an interesting experience, fraught with peril and at many points we have been waylaid with problems. My wife and I have taken to calling them "Diamond Shoe Problems" as in, my diamond shoes are too tight. She ultimately coined the phrase from my extensive blatherings. As we all know, I have a tendency to go on, and her profession as a Technical Writer requires her to take long winded explanations and boil them down to their raw, instructional essence. I have taken this phrase and entered it into the official SuburbanJoe lexicon and would recommend you do the same, lest you find yourself worrying about things that really don't fucking matter. At some point, I would like to overhear it in casual conversation, or even better, have me quoted to me as in some sort of "When Harry Met Sally" moment. Either that or I would like someone to fake an orgasm in front of me in a deli.
OK, so back to Oblivion. It had been quite some time since I visited fair Tamriel what with putting a whupping on the God of War, and rocking out. In fact, it had been so long since I played, that I couldn't remember how to cast spells. This is fine if you're just bouncing around the countryside and you want a little light, but I was being hit with a very large sword at the time. It hurt, and I needed to heal myself. That is not the time to forget how to twist majiks to your foul purposes. I have since remembered and now heal myself with aplomb. I also learned a spell that allows me to heal others, which my horse very much appreciates as I repeatedly ride him off of mountains, an act he rebels against with a disgusted whinny. Well, not so much disgusted as pained. This would explain why, everytime I de-horse, he attempts to walk away from me. That and I tend to ride places that get him beset by minotaurs and crabmen. Now that I can heal him, he tolerates my presence, but I can tell that had he the choice, he would let fly with an iron toe, and kick me back to Buff-a-lo.
I have decided to focus exclusively on the main quest, to get that out of the way, as I keep riding past Oblivion gates, portals into an alternate, malevolent dimension, as I move around the countryside. These portals, and the creatures they disgorge, are an annoyance to me, as I can't fast travel when enemies are about, and those Oblivion fuckers are a tenacious lot, choosing to chase me and my horse halfway across the goddamn continent. That and they represent an unspeakable evil set to crush all who would oppose them. There's only room for one unspeakable evil in Tamriel, and you're looking at him so I need to wrap this up toot suite so that my infamy can continue, unrivaled.
To do this, I have to go through these gates, make my way through the hellish landscape, ultimately make it to the top of some spire and steal a sigil stone. Doing so will close the gate and give me a handy magical doo-dad that I can combine with a weapon or a piece of armor/clothing with magically delicious results. When I first started the game, I was up for whatever these Oblivioids threw at me, swinging steel and letting arrow fly as I mowed them down. Now that I've done that, and have revelled in that unique experience, I have a new strategy. Now I enter the gate and run. I run, I run so far away. Sometimes I hide. Sometimes I run and hide. It's a varied approach, and one that I found can easily be changed to suit your needs, as long as you stick to a) running b) hiding or c) some combination of the two. Finally, when all running and hiding has gotten me to the room with the sigil stone, I drink an invisibility potion, thereby rendering me, you guessed it, invisible. I can then steal the stone unimpeded. When I steal the stone, the invisibility potion wears off and the beasties can hurt me before the gate closes completely. To get around this, I hurl myself off of the top level of the spire and then just run around and hope that no one hurts me too much before the gate closes. It is a well tested strategy, and one that I hope you can use to your own advantage in other areas of your life.
When I have to actually fight something, I pull my trusted Ebony Blade, it of the absorb health enchantment, and I just wade in there swinging all willy-nilly. If I get hit, it's OK, as my sword will suck the life from my target and replenish my dwindling store. This is an excellent strategy, except for the fact that my armor takes a wicked beating and I have to continually head to town to get it repaired. Currently, it is completely broken, leading your's truly to either go back to town yet again, or continue adventuring in the nude. I find neither option palatable, however naked dungeoning is an easy path to certain doom. Perhaps I need to find sturdier armor. Either that or somehow manipulate the large, round, metal blocking object currently attached to my left forearm. I think they call it a shield.
Once the main quest is finished, I wonder if I'll still care as much about the game as I do now. On the one hand, I put 60 hours into the game not caring one bit about the main quest, so I'm not sure why I'd miss it when I was gone. On the other hand, once the main quest is done, the story turns into the smaller, stories of the individual quests. I think I'll be OK with that, as when I wasn't doing the main quest, and kept taking on other quests, there was always this little, nagging voice telling me to do the main quest instead of flitting around and assassinating people. Once I get this done, that voice will be silenced and I can move on to important things like riding my horse off of cliffs and nude dungeoning. 'Tis the adventuring life for me!
I purchased the new Tom Petty cd on Tuesday. It is an excellent piece of musical craftmanship, as usual. Mr. Petty does fine, fine work with the Heartbreakers, however with the exception of the "She's the One" soundtrack, I prefer his solo stuff. It is easy to dismiss his personal music as sounding like his work with the Heartbreakers, due to the distinctive nature of his voice, but I can assure you, it is quite different. More mellow, more layered, a more personal approach to music. Good stuff.
All week I've been reading the transcripts from the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, which was when some parents sued the Dover school district after the Board voted to allow the entry of Intelligent Design into the high school biology curriculum. Now, I have absolutely no intention of getting into a discussion about Intelligent Design here. I will certainly share my opinion on the subject with you should you want to contact me directly (suburbanjoe at gmail dot com) however I like to keep things casual and jokey here and a discussion of that nature can very easily turn into so very not casual and so very not jokey. Anyway, the court transcripts are very, very interesting and make for good reading and showcase, as the presiding judge mentioned, excellent lawyering. The amount of research done and the level of preparedness of the counsel on both sides was amazing.
We have new furniture in our family room. Well, not all of it, as the couch is MIA. We hope to have this remedied tomorrow. This has been an interesting experience, fraught with peril and at many points we have been waylaid with problems. My wife and I have taken to calling them "Diamond Shoe Problems" as in, my diamond shoes are too tight. She ultimately coined the phrase from my extensive blatherings. As we all know, I have a tendency to go on, and her profession as a Technical Writer requires her to take long winded explanations and boil them down to their raw, instructional essence. I have taken this phrase and entered it into the official SuburbanJoe lexicon and would recommend you do the same, lest you find yourself worrying about things that really don't fucking matter. At some point, I would like to overhear it in casual conversation, or even better, have me quoted to me as in some sort of "When Harry Met Sally" moment. Either that or I would like someone to fake an orgasm in front of me in a deli.
OK, so back to Oblivion. It had been quite some time since I visited fair Tamriel what with putting a whupping on the God of War, and rocking out. In fact, it had been so long since I played, that I couldn't remember how to cast spells. This is fine if you're just bouncing around the countryside and you want a little light, but I was being hit with a very large sword at the time. It hurt, and I needed to heal myself. That is not the time to forget how to twist majiks to your foul purposes. I have since remembered and now heal myself with aplomb. I also learned a spell that allows me to heal others, which my horse very much appreciates as I repeatedly ride him off of mountains, an act he rebels against with a disgusted whinny. Well, not so much disgusted as pained. This would explain why, everytime I de-horse, he attempts to walk away from me. That and I tend to ride places that get him beset by minotaurs and crabmen. Now that I can heal him, he tolerates my presence, but I can tell that had he the choice, he would let fly with an iron toe, and kick me back to Buff-a-lo.
I have decided to focus exclusively on the main quest, to get that out of the way, as I keep riding past Oblivion gates, portals into an alternate, malevolent dimension, as I move around the countryside. These portals, and the creatures they disgorge, are an annoyance to me, as I can't fast travel when enemies are about, and those Oblivion fuckers are a tenacious lot, choosing to chase me and my horse halfway across the goddamn continent. That and they represent an unspeakable evil set to crush all who would oppose them. There's only room for one unspeakable evil in Tamriel, and you're looking at him so I need to wrap this up toot suite so that my infamy can continue, unrivaled.
To do this, I have to go through these gates, make my way through the hellish landscape, ultimately make it to the top of some spire and steal a sigil stone. Doing so will close the gate and give me a handy magical doo-dad that I can combine with a weapon or a piece of armor/clothing with magically delicious results. When I first started the game, I was up for whatever these Oblivioids threw at me, swinging steel and letting arrow fly as I mowed them down. Now that I've done that, and have revelled in that unique experience, I have a new strategy. Now I enter the gate and run. I run, I run so far away. Sometimes I hide. Sometimes I run and hide. It's a varied approach, and one that I found can easily be changed to suit your needs, as long as you stick to a) running b) hiding or c) some combination of the two. Finally, when all running and hiding has gotten me to the room with the sigil stone, I drink an invisibility potion, thereby rendering me, you guessed it, invisible. I can then steal the stone unimpeded. When I steal the stone, the invisibility potion wears off and the beasties can hurt me before the gate closes completely. To get around this, I hurl myself off of the top level of the spire and then just run around and hope that no one hurts me too much before the gate closes. It is a well tested strategy, and one that I hope you can use to your own advantage in other areas of your life.
When I have to actually fight something, I pull my trusted Ebony Blade, it of the absorb health enchantment, and I just wade in there swinging all willy-nilly. If I get hit, it's OK, as my sword will suck the life from my target and replenish my dwindling store. This is an excellent strategy, except for the fact that my armor takes a wicked beating and I have to continually head to town to get it repaired. Currently, it is completely broken, leading your's truly to either go back to town yet again, or continue adventuring in the nude. I find neither option palatable, however naked dungeoning is an easy path to certain doom. Perhaps I need to find sturdier armor. Either that or somehow manipulate the large, round, metal blocking object currently attached to my left forearm. I think they call it a shield.
Once the main quest is finished, I wonder if I'll still care as much about the game as I do now. On the one hand, I put 60 hours into the game not caring one bit about the main quest, so I'm not sure why I'd miss it when I was gone. On the other hand, once the main quest is done, the story turns into the smaller, stories of the individual quests. I think I'll be OK with that, as when I wasn't doing the main quest, and kept taking on other quests, there was always this little, nagging voice telling me to do the main quest instead of flitting around and assassinating people. Once I get this done, that voice will be silenced and I can move on to important things like riding my horse off of cliffs and nude dungeoning. 'Tis the adventuring life for me!
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Note to self
Do the Wednesday science post prior to Wednesday night, so that you can, you know, actually do it. Otherwise you end up tired and can't write anything coherent because you can barely understand your own name at this point in the evening, much less the basics of quantum computing.
I will do my best to do a science post this week, but the topics I have to cover are pretty heavy, and they may require more research than usual. Then again, they may be extremely easy to understand and I'm just tired.
Many apologies Squaddies. I know I've been less than 100% with regular science posts of late. I'm working on a schedule that will allow me to put an end to my poor attendance record.
I will do my best to do a science post this week, but the topics I have to cover are pretty heavy, and they may require more research than usual. Then again, they may be extremely easy to understand and I'm just tired.
Many apologies Squaddies. I know I've been less than 100% with regular science posts of late. I'm working on a schedule that will allow me to put an end to my poor attendance record.
Monday, July 24, 2006
The Rock Show
Friday night I ventured out of my cave, into the July Atlanta heat so that I might enjoy the song stylings of Guster, live at the Chastain Park Ampitheater. It was an interesting experience which I will now recount for you, my cherished audience.
First things first. The band rocked and the new material fit nicely with their previous stuff. They made some nice little changes to some of the songs that worked well in the live setting and helped to differentiate the songs from the studio versions. Nothing is worse than going to a live show and having the songs sound exactly like the studio versions, only with a little reverb. The band had a great rapport with the crowd and they were genuinely happy to be there. All in all, a great show and should you have the opportunity to see Guster live, you should grab it with both hands and ride that fucker all the way to the local TicketMaster outlet. Convenience charges be damned.
Chastain is, by far, the strangest place I've ever seen a show at. The whole thing is outdoors, and it's set up to encourage people to bring food, beverages, what have you to consume during the show. There are actual tables closer up to the stage, and you can either bring food or have catered food brought right to you. It is not an arena that screams "rock!" but given the price of the ticket, I think they're catering to people who care more about a good merlot than about rocking out. Unfortunately, I could give a fuck about merlot and live only to rock, so I felt a wee bit out of place.
Also, I was alone, and going to a rock show alone requires you to rock out a little less than you usually would, lest you be That Guy. You know That Guy. He's the one at the show who is waaaaaay to enthusiastic about the show and who hoots and hollers, possibly removing his shirt in the process, and will, while shirtlessly hooting and hollering, turn back to face the crowd to see if they are enjoying the show as much as he is. He also dances, although it looks more like he's having a seizure, which he may be, as he is, most likely, stoned out of his fucking mind. I am happy to report, I did not become That Guy, so no worries there.
The cast of characters around me provided as much entertainment as the show itself, so before we get any farther along, allow me to make some introductions. To my left was The Foursome, as I never learned their names and there were four of them. To my right was Kyle and Meagan. In front of me was Dancing Mike and his girlfriend, NoName Lady. They were joined by Candle Man and his girlfriend NoName Lady #2. I don't know who was behind me but that chick could scream.
Kyle, Meagan, NNL, Dancing Mike, Candle Man and NNL#2 attended the concert together and as such, there was much conversationing between the parties. Meagan, in particular, enjoyed talking a fair amount. I heard all about the flowers that Kyle sent for her birthday (it was this past Saturday, the day after the concert). I heard how her birthday was going to be celebrated with an event called MeaganFest, a play on the MegaFest name of the popular Christian festival Atlanta just played host to. I heard where she wanted to go for MeaganFest, where she didn't want to go, yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm not sure what the draw of the concert was, as she talked through the entire fucking thing, but she seemed to have a good time, so good for her.
Kyle was about 9 feet tall, with massive feet and all the grace of a drunk giraffe. This came into play later when the dancing began. As the night turned darker, before the music started, Kyle and Candle Man produced these big ol' glass votives with candles in them, lit them and placed them on the concrete at their feet. Now, there weren't any bugs out, and these certainly weren't citronella candles, so I was confused as to their purpose. I asked Kyle what the candles were for, and he responded "Oh, just a little ambience." Now, I don't want to paint myself as some rock veteran who followed Judas Priest around the country in some shitty ass van, but I can also say that I've been to plenty of concerts in my day and I can honestly say that pretty much every damn one of them would have resulted in a beating were you to bring out lit candles under the pretense of adding ambience. I mean, Jesus, it's ROCK SHOW. Who the fuck brings candles to a rock show, even a somewhat poppy, mellow rock show as Guster? Have you ever seen mood altering candles in the seats at Ozzfest? I doubt it.
Apparantly, they were not only for ambience but for Candle man to use in some sort of musical ritual, designed, no doubt, to invoke the favor of the gods. Once the group started getting up to dance, an event that took way longer than it should have, given the quality of the music being played, Candle Man took a votive in each hand and started waving them around and dancing like some sort of Polynesian fire dancer. This dude, as a kid, accidentally burned his shed down, I'm sure of it.
Candle Man also had this way of announcing the name of the song after the song was played, which does no one any good, as if they weren't paying attention, perhaps because Meagan was explaining what shoes she did and didn't want to wear to MeaganFest, they wouldn't know the song was being played until after it was over. Guster has this great song called "Airport Song" that's basically about a cult, with the last line being "you'll be selling books at the airport". They chose this show to do an extended rock mix of the song and basically dragged it out for about 6 or 7 minutes, quite impressively, might I add. It's a very distinct song, and a fan of the band, as presumably we all were, were to hear it, even after the lyrics were finished, they would immediately recognize it. Once it was finished, Candle Man said the same thing to every person in the group, including the ladies, "Dude! Airport song!" High fives were also exchanged. The funny thing was that Kyle, still in the steely grip of Meagan's conversational trap, did not respond immediately prompting a conversation that went something like this:
CM: Kyle! Dude! Airport Song!
K: (nothing)
CM: Kyle!
K: (nothing)
CM: Kyle!
K: (nothing)
CM: KYLE!
K: What?
CM: Dude! Airport Song!
Ok, Candle Man, we get it. As I say to my 3 year old who is similarly annoying in his repetition of the events that just transpired in front of all of us, "We're all here." Granted, he's like a tenth of your age, so him I cut slack. You, not so much. Candle Man also had this way of dancing/singing where he'd kind of point in your face and sing, accentuating the lyrics with finger jabs. I wanted to ask him if he new he wasn't at a NWA show, but I was afraid he'd throw down and start jabbing votives in my face while rapping "Still DRE". Candle Man is the guy who people have a good time with, however once in a while you'll turn down an invitation to go out and remark to your other friends that you just weren't in the mood for Candle Man. Every group has one of these people. If you can't identify that person in your group, chances are it's you, so please, fucking dial it back a notch.
So, Candle Man is invoking the fire god with his dancing, NNL and NNL#2 are also dancing and Meagan is dancing and trying to get Kyle to dance. At this point, I think Meagan was pretty fucked up, and apparantly, liquor makes young Meagan horny as she was all rubbing on Kyle like he was made out of sex magic. Kyle didn't want to dance, nor did Mike. Kyle I can understand, because he had all the coordination of someone 9 feet tall, and his feet were undeniably huge. Were he to slam one of those fuckers down to the rhythm, down down to the rhyme, he might split the world asunder like that dude in the Inhumans. Eventually Meagan got Kyle dancing and she looked like she was getting ready to rip his clothes on. They ending up leaving during the first encore because they wanted to "load the car". Right. So that's what they're calling it nowadays.
Dancing Mike also resisted the requests to dance. Dancing Mike was the joker of the group and like your stereotypical group joker, he's making up for some shortcoming (I have self esteem issues, if you're wondering what my problem is) with his jokiness. I assumed it was a lack of dancing ability. Not so. Dancing Mike had some moves, and with his spiky hair and lanky build, he looked like a young Kevin Bacon. He would not have looked out of place gyrating in a barn, away from the reproachful eyes of John Lithgow.
While all of the flame dancing, pop locking and drunken groping was taking place, The Foursome, or at least the menfolk half, were taking turns making fun of the activities to my right and in front of me. Now, as my wife will attest, I enjoy making fun of complete strangers just as much as the next person, but these people really had no basis for mockery. For one, they each probably spent more on their outfit than I did on my entire work wardrobe. Secondly, the one dude was wearing Skechers flip-flops. Anyone who wears designer, or, in this case, alternative designer flip-flops needs a good beating. Flip flops are throw away pieces of crap you buy in the bin at Target for like a dollar. You don't pay 34 bucks on a pair of fucking flip-flops. Plus, this dude has some gnarly ass jacked up feet which really shouldn't have been available for all to see. Not without first spending some time with a piece of pumace. Dude, moisturize. Seriously.
So, after all the dancing was done, the house lights were up, Candle Man's candles were burnt out and Meagan and Kyle were off fucking in the car, The Foursome left and the folks in front of me started leaving. I noticed that they hadn't picked up their votives, so I picked them up, got their attention and mentioned that they had forgotten their candles. At this point, Candle Man looks at me like I had just rummaged through their garbage and asked them if they were going to finish their discarded sandwiches. He then says "Um, I think those are burnt out. But thanks." Now, again, I don't want to paint myself incorrectly, as someone who lived a hardscrabble existence as a child and we were using jelly jars as glasses or ironing and reusing tin foil, but these were pretty big votives, and last I checked, you can just put another candle in them. You just scrape the wax out with a butter knife, drop in a new candle and voila, you're back in business for the upcoming Fiona Apple show. Even if they only paid like a buck a votive, that's still 4 bucks they're just throwing away on votives that they really should have gotten their ass kicked for bringing to a rock show in the first place.
All this has led me to come up with the idea that when a concert venue sells a single ticket, it should put all of those single ticket holders into the same section. This would allow for some camaraderie for all of the lonely losers, allow said lonely losers to feel like they could talk to the people around them and not feel like they're crashing a party, and cut down on rock show pretentious bullshit like votive candles and designer flip flops. The best conversation I had all night was with the kid selling t-shirts. He was regaling me with tales of when he toured with Bon Jovi selling band merchandise. Think Richie or Jon Bon Jovi would have stood for votive candles and ambience? I can tell from experience that they most certainly would not. Maybe Tico. He was always a little funny that way.
First things first. The band rocked and the new material fit nicely with their previous stuff. They made some nice little changes to some of the songs that worked well in the live setting and helped to differentiate the songs from the studio versions. Nothing is worse than going to a live show and having the songs sound exactly like the studio versions, only with a little reverb. The band had a great rapport with the crowd and they were genuinely happy to be there. All in all, a great show and should you have the opportunity to see Guster live, you should grab it with both hands and ride that fucker all the way to the local TicketMaster outlet. Convenience charges be damned.
Chastain is, by far, the strangest place I've ever seen a show at. The whole thing is outdoors, and it's set up to encourage people to bring food, beverages, what have you to consume during the show. There are actual tables closer up to the stage, and you can either bring food or have catered food brought right to you. It is not an arena that screams "rock!" but given the price of the ticket, I think they're catering to people who care more about a good merlot than about rocking out. Unfortunately, I could give a fuck about merlot and live only to rock, so I felt a wee bit out of place.
Also, I was alone, and going to a rock show alone requires you to rock out a little less than you usually would, lest you be That Guy. You know That Guy. He's the one at the show who is waaaaaay to enthusiastic about the show and who hoots and hollers, possibly removing his shirt in the process, and will, while shirtlessly hooting and hollering, turn back to face the crowd to see if they are enjoying the show as much as he is. He also dances, although it looks more like he's having a seizure, which he may be, as he is, most likely, stoned out of his fucking mind. I am happy to report, I did not become That Guy, so no worries there.
The cast of characters around me provided as much entertainment as the show itself, so before we get any farther along, allow me to make some introductions. To my left was The Foursome, as I never learned their names and there were four of them. To my right was Kyle and Meagan. In front of me was Dancing Mike and his girlfriend, NoName Lady. They were joined by Candle Man and his girlfriend NoName Lady #2. I don't know who was behind me but that chick could scream.
Kyle, Meagan, NNL, Dancing Mike, Candle Man and NNL#2 attended the concert together and as such, there was much conversationing between the parties. Meagan, in particular, enjoyed talking a fair amount. I heard all about the flowers that Kyle sent for her birthday (it was this past Saturday, the day after the concert). I heard how her birthday was going to be celebrated with an event called MeaganFest, a play on the MegaFest name of the popular Christian festival Atlanta just played host to. I heard where she wanted to go for MeaganFest, where she didn't want to go, yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm not sure what the draw of the concert was, as she talked through the entire fucking thing, but she seemed to have a good time, so good for her.
Kyle was about 9 feet tall, with massive feet and all the grace of a drunk giraffe. This came into play later when the dancing began. As the night turned darker, before the music started, Kyle and Candle Man produced these big ol' glass votives with candles in them, lit them and placed them on the concrete at their feet. Now, there weren't any bugs out, and these certainly weren't citronella candles, so I was confused as to their purpose. I asked Kyle what the candles were for, and he responded "Oh, just a little ambience." Now, I don't want to paint myself as some rock veteran who followed Judas Priest around the country in some shitty ass van, but I can also say that I've been to plenty of concerts in my day and I can honestly say that pretty much every damn one of them would have resulted in a beating were you to bring out lit candles under the pretense of adding ambience. I mean, Jesus, it's ROCK SHOW. Who the fuck brings candles to a rock show, even a somewhat poppy, mellow rock show as Guster? Have you ever seen mood altering candles in the seats at Ozzfest? I doubt it.
Apparantly, they were not only for ambience but for Candle man to use in some sort of musical ritual, designed, no doubt, to invoke the favor of the gods. Once the group started getting up to dance, an event that took way longer than it should have, given the quality of the music being played, Candle Man took a votive in each hand and started waving them around and dancing like some sort of Polynesian fire dancer. This dude, as a kid, accidentally burned his shed down, I'm sure of it.
Candle Man also had this way of announcing the name of the song after the song was played, which does no one any good, as if they weren't paying attention, perhaps because Meagan was explaining what shoes she did and didn't want to wear to MeaganFest, they wouldn't know the song was being played until after it was over. Guster has this great song called "Airport Song" that's basically about a cult, with the last line being "you'll be selling books at the airport". They chose this show to do an extended rock mix of the song and basically dragged it out for about 6 or 7 minutes, quite impressively, might I add. It's a very distinct song, and a fan of the band, as presumably we all were, were to hear it, even after the lyrics were finished, they would immediately recognize it. Once it was finished, Candle Man said the same thing to every person in the group, including the ladies, "Dude! Airport song!" High fives were also exchanged. The funny thing was that Kyle, still in the steely grip of Meagan's conversational trap, did not respond immediately prompting a conversation that went something like this:
CM: Kyle! Dude! Airport Song!
K: (nothing)
CM: Kyle!
K: (nothing)
CM: Kyle!
K: (nothing)
CM: KYLE!
K: What?
CM: Dude! Airport Song!
Ok, Candle Man, we get it. As I say to my 3 year old who is similarly annoying in his repetition of the events that just transpired in front of all of us, "We're all here." Granted, he's like a tenth of your age, so him I cut slack. You, not so much. Candle Man also had this way of dancing/singing where he'd kind of point in your face and sing, accentuating the lyrics with finger jabs. I wanted to ask him if he new he wasn't at a NWA show, but I was afraid he'd throw down and start jabbing votives in my face while rapping "Still DRE". Candle Man is the guy who people have a good time with, however once in a while you'll turn down an invitation to go out and remark to your other friends that you just weren't in the mood for Candle Man. Every group has one of these people. If you can't identify that person in your group, chances are it's you, so please, fucking dial it back a notch.
So, Candle Man is invoking the fire god with his dancing, NNL and NNL#2 are also dancing and Meagan is dancing and trying to get Kyle to dance. At this point, I think Meagan was pretty fucked up, and apparantly, liquor makes young Meagan horny as she was all rubbing on Kyle like he was made out of sex magic. Kyle didn't want to dance, nor did Mike. Kyle I can understand, because he had all the coordination of someone 9 feet tall, and his feet were undeniably huge. Were he to slam one of those fuckers down to the rhythm, down down to the rhyme, he might split the world asunder like that dude in the Inhumans. Eventually Meagan got Kyle dancing and she looked like she was getting ready to rip his clothes on. They ending up leaving during the first encore because they wanted to "load the car". Right. So that's what they're calling it nowadays.
Dancing Mike also resisted the requests to dance. Dancing Mike was the joker of the group and like your stereotypical group joker, he's making up for some shortcoming (I have self esteem issues, if you're wondering what my problem is) with his jokiness. I assumed it was a lack of dancing ability. Not so. Dancing Mike had some moves, and with his spiky hair and lanky build, he looked like a young Kevin Bacon. He would not have looked out of place gyrating in a barn, away from the reproachful eyes of John Lithgow.
While all of the flame dancing, pop locking and drunken groping was taking place, The Foursome, or at least the menfolk half, were taking turns making fun of the activities to my right and in front of me. Now, as my wife will attest, I enjoy making fun of complete strangers just as much as the next person, but these people really had no basis for mockery. For one, they each probably spent more on their outfit than I did on my entire work wardrobe. Secondly, the one dude was wearing Skechers flip-flops. Anyone who wears designer, or, in this case, alternative designer flip-flops needs a good beating. Flip flops are throw away pieces of crap you buy in the bin at Target for like a dollar. You don't pay 34 bucks on a pair of fucking flip-flops. Plus, this dude has some gnarly ass jacked up feet which really shouldn't have been available for all to see. Not without first spending some time with a piece of pumace. Dude, moisturize. Seriously.
So, after all the dancing was done, the house lights were up, Candle Man's candles were burnt out and Meagan and Kyle were off fucking in the car, The Foursome left and the folks in front of me started leaving. I noticed that they hadn't picked up their votives, so I picked them up, got their attention and mentioned that they had forgotten their candles. At this point, Candle Man looks at me like I had just rummaged through their garbage and asked them if they were going to finish their discarded sandwiches. He then says "Um, I think those are burnt out. But thanks." Now, again, I don't want to paint myself incorrectly, as someone who lived a hardscrabble existence as a child and we were using jelly jars as glasses or ironing and reusing tin foil, but these were pretty big votives, and last I checked, you can just put another candle in them. You just scrape the wax out with a butter knife, drop in a new candle and voila, you're back in business for the upcoming Fiona Apple show. Even if they only paid like a buck a votive, that's still 4 bucks they're just throwing away on votives that they really should have gotten their ass kicked for bringing to a rock show in the first place.
All this has led me to come up with the idea that when a concert venue sells a single ticket, it should put all of those single ticket holders into the same section. This would allow for some camaraderie for all of the lonely losers, allow said lonely losers to feel like they could talk to the people around them and not feel like they're crashing a party, and cut down on rock show pretentious bullshit like votive candles and designer flip flops. The best conversation I had all night was with the kid selling t-shirts. He was regaling me with tales of when he toured with Bon Jovi selling band merchandise. Think Richie or Jon Bon Jovi would have stood for votive candles and ambience? I can tell from experience that they most certainly would not. Maybe Tico. He was always a little funny that way.
This is Not the Monday Post
MQ "tagged" me today on her site, so if I'm reading things correctly, I'm supposed to answer the same questions and then tag others. I think I can do that. However, I don't want you to think that this takes the place of the usual Monday post. It doesn't. Now, without further ado:
Five things in my purse wallet
1. Driver's license
2. Picture of my wife
3. Picture of my kids
4. Prayer card from my grandfather's funeral
5. Email address of couple we met in Russia when adopting Abby. I have never emailed them.
Five things in my refrigerator
1. Milk
2. Blueberries for cereal
3. Pickled jalapenos
4. Pickled banana peppers
5. Pickled cherry peppers. We like peppers at my house.
Five things in my closet
1. Clothes
2. Washington Post from Sept 12, 2001
3. Every letter Linda and I exchanged when dating
4. All of my watches
5. A stupid play tube/tunnel thing from Ikea that we bought a year ago and then never gave to Ben, because we bought a bigger tube/tunnel thing for his birthday. Ikea is somewhat far away and traffic is blechy, hence the not returning.
Five things in my car
1. An odd smell
2. CD's
3. Earphone/microphone for my cell
4. Parking garage pass
5. A hammer so that my mother-in-law doesn't have to worry that I'll perish in a watery grave when I plunge into a river and then can't open my power windows. Don't ask.
Um, I don't know who to tag, but I'll say anyone from the XB site that reads this here blog. You know who you are. I also tag Greg. Greg, thou art it!
Five things in my purse wallet
1. Driver's license
2. Picture of my wife
3. Picture of my kids
4. Prayer card from my grandfather's funeral
5. Email address of couple we met in Russia when adopting Abby. I have never emailed them.
Five things in my refrigerator
1. Milk
2. Blueberries for cereal
3. Pickled jalapenos
4. Pickled banana peppers
5. Pickled cherry peppers. We like peppers at my house.
Five things in my closet
1. Clothes
2. Washington Post from Sept 12, 2001
3. Every letter Linda and I exchanged when dating
4. All of my watches
5. A stupid play tube/tunnel thing from Ikea that we bought a year ago and then never gave to Ben, because we bought a bigger tube/tunnel thing for his birthday. Ikea is somewhat far away and traffic is blechy, hence the not returning.
Five things in my car
1. An odd smell
2. CD's
3. Earphone/microphone for my cell
4. Parking garage pass
5. A hammer so that my mother-in-law doesn't have to worry that I'll perish in a watery grave when I plunge into a river and then can't open my power windows. Don't ask.
Um, I don't know who to tag, but I'll say anyone from the XB site that reads this here blog. You know who you are. I also tag Greg. Greg, thou art it!
Friday, July 21, 2006
God of War
Well, it's Friday and save for an hour long meeting, I've successfully avoided doing any real work. Yay for me.
Last weekend I finished God of War so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the game. We at SuburbanJoe feel it important to keep you up to date on games that came out over a year ago. If not here, then where?
God of War follows the adventures of Kratos, a down on his luck Spartan warrior who just happens to be on a quest to kill Ares, the god of war. With his trusty Blades of Chaos permanently seared to his wrists, his bold, red tattoos and his plucky spirit, Kratos makes his way through lands of Greek myth, happily rolling logs, climbing pillars, swimming through deadly gears and killing whatever he comes across in the most violent and disturbing manner possible.
For all of the hoopla raised about the Grand Theft Auto games, I'm surprised no one makes a peep about God of War. Granted, cyclops don't exist in real life, unlike hookers, but still, any game that has you finishing off a living creature by using your blades to climb up said creature and then reaching in and ripping it's sole eye out should warrant a little criticism. There are games I would not allow my kids to watch, like Call of Duty 2. Then there are games like this one, where I'm uncomfortable having my children in the same room as it, lest it's violent behaviour seep out and taint my innocent offspring. There's even a sex minigame in there, not hidden behind layers of code manipulated only by GameSharks and other foul magiks, but right out in the open for all to see. Well, not all as I missed it, but it is in there.
Combat is interesting and your various weapons and magical powers can be levelled up relatively well with new/stronger combos open unto you when levelled. As in any game with a bunch of combos, you'll find some that work for you and then quickly forget about all of the others. Combat can geta little repetetive as any time you see an open hallway, or large, open room, you can bet that once you get in it, the doors will seal and you'll be faced with undead minions to dispatch. Combat is rarely too difficult, on the medium setting anyways, as the game seems to modify what dead enemies drop to help you get through particularly tough battles. One thing I noticed was that in certain situations, like moving from a hallway to a room, if the hallway was still open when the beasties appeared, they'd follow you to the opening of the hallway, but no farther allowing you to retreat into the hall, and start a combo that finished in the room, smashing your enemies in the process. Hey, it's not running away if they don't follow. Or something.
What does get you killed, and multiple times in this game, is the variety of puzzles placed in Kratos's path, seemingly to get you, the player, up to the same level of apocalyptic rage as the character you're manipulating. Now while I didn't find the game as frustrating as my friend Dennis, who broke his hand in anger during the "climb out of Hades" sequence, and I didn't chuck my controller across the room as I did when fighting Meta-Ridley in Metroid Prime, I did have my fair share of curse words, thrown up hands and visions of me punching David Jaffe in the gut. I enjoy a good puzzle, perhaps of some kittens looking dismayed at the fishy treat denied to them by a glass bowl, or of some horses, congregating at a fence line and broken up into 250 oddly shaped pieces. What I don't like is feeling like I'm making progress only to come to a section where I have to walk across timbers 3 stories in the air and jump rotating saw blade arm thingies. Nothing makes gaming come to a screeching halt quite like doing the same puzzle over and over and over and over. In fact, I was so uninterested in a particular set of puzzles that I didn't play the game for over a month. Granted, I watched Deadwood during that time, but I also did my fair share of rocking out in Guitar Hero, a game who's "puzzles", in contrast, invite, nay, demand your continued attempts at mastery.
That being said, I wouldn't not recommend God of War to folks, as it's production values are superb, it has a good amount of replay value in both an unlockeable new difficulty level and a Challenge of the Gods mode that, when completed, allows you to dress Kratos as a cow using jugs of milk instead of tethered blades. I kid you not. There is also a good number of featurettes explaining how they went about designing the game, the evolution of Kratos, the evolution of the monsters and a gallery of discarded character models. Usually, these peeks behind the curtain require you to pay an extra 10 bucks and buy the Super Extended Collectors' Edition of the game, but those good folks at SCEA have included it all, free of charge. Good on them.
The story is interesting and the cut scenes are top notch, so if you remember a time when your gaming efforts were rewarded with a killer ending movie, you won't be dissappointed. I found Kratos's reason for wanting to kill Ares kind of silly, well not silly, but lacking compared to the level of quality in the rest of the game, but in a game like this, the story is secondary. Hell, I'm happy they had one as developed as they did. There has been some recent hullabaloo, yes hullabaloo, over David Jaffe (the designer of God of War) no longer wanting to make games with stories, wanting instead to focus on the game experience. People were somewhat surprised by this both for what it means for future God of War games and just games in general. First of all, it doesn't mean squat for future God of War games as all they really need to do is just change the story, add some new enemies and perhaps a new combo or two and bam, you have GoW2 and GoW3.
As for the second point, games don't need stories to be good. Tetris doesn't have a story and that game sells in whatever format they put it out in. Sports games don't have stories and they sell like hotcakes. In fact, the only games that need stories to be successful are RPG's and adventure games. That's why the story of all of the Super Mario Bros. games have all been the same, Princess Peach has been kidnapped and Mario must rescue her. I think that the reason for this is that in most games, the gameplay doesn't do anything to tell the story, it's just what you do to get to the next point where more of the story will be told, either by getting to the next geographic part in the game, finding whatever you need to find, or beating whoever you need to beat. The story is then told in cutscenes or conversations or in examining said found item, but I don't remember a time where I obtained a powerful +4 Combo of Plot Revelation.
RPG's and adventure games have conversations as part of their gameplay, so they can move the plot forward with their gameplay, but even that's a bit of a stretch. That's not to say that you can't tell stories, and good ones, with games and even in genres that were traditionally bereft of stories (Hellloooo Half-Life), but Jaffe saying that he doesn't want to do games with stories means just that. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to do good games. God of War had a very specific tone, and takes place in a very specific time period/mythology, so a lot of the gameplay is restricted. It's not like you can throw in a whack-a-mole mini-game or something so I can see why Jaffe might want to cast aside the limitations of story and just focus on gaming. If he can make good games out of it, good for him.
So, to wrap up, God of War has an interesting story, good but slightly repetetive combat, annoying puzzles, superb production values and a level of gore and violence we probably should all be a little ashamed of. At 20 bucks, lower if you score it preowned, it's a pretty good way to spend some time with your PS2. Plus, it has boobs, for whatever that's worth.
Last weekend I finished God of War so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the game. We at SuburbanJoe feel it important to keep you up to date on games that came out over a year ago. If not here, then where?
God of War follows the adventures of Kratos, a down on his luck Spartan warrior who just happens to be on a quest to kill Ares, the god of war. With his trusty Blades of Chaos permanently seared to his wrists, his bold, red tattoos and his plucky spirit, Kratos makes his way through lands of Greek myth, happily rolling logs, climbing pillars, swimming through deadly gears and killing whatever he comes across in the most violent and disturbing manner possible.
For all of the hoopla raised about the Grand Theft Auto games, I'm surprised no one makes a peep about God of War. Granted, cyclops don't exist in real life, unlike hookers, but still, any game that has you finishing off a living creature by using your blades to climb up said creature and then reaching in and ripping it's sole eye out should warrant a little criticism. There are games I would not allow my kids to watch, like Call of Duty 2. Then there are games like this one, where I'm uncomfortable having my children in the same room as it, lest it's violent behaviour seep out and taint my innocent offspring. There's even a sex minigame in there, not hidden behind layers of code manipulated only by GameSharks and other foul magiks, but right out in the open for all to see. Well, not all as I missed it, but it is in there.
Combat is interesting and your various weapons and magical powers can be levelled up relatively well with new/stronger combos open unto you when levelled. As in any game with a bunch of combos, you'll find some that work for you and then quickly forget about all of the others. Combat can geta little repetetive as any time you see an open hallway, or large, open room, you can bet that once you get in it, the doors will seal and you'll be faced with undead minions to dispatch. Combat is rarely too difficult, on the medium setting anyways, as the game seems to modify what dead enemies drop to help you get through particularly tough battles. One thing I noticed was that in certain situations, like moving from a hallway to a room, if the hallway was still open when the beasties appeared, they'd follow you to the opening of the hallway, but no farther allowing you to retreat into the hall, and start a combo that finished in the room, smashing your enemies in the process. Hey, it's not running away if they don't follow. Or something.
What does get you killed, and multiple times in this game, is the variety of puzzles placed in Kratos's path, seemingly to get you, the player, up to the same level of apocalyptic rage as the character you're manipulating. Now while I didn't find the game as frustrating as my friend Dennis, who broke his hand in anger during the "climb out of Hades" sequence, and I didn't chuck my controller across the room as I did when fighting Meta-Ridley in Metroid Prime, I did have my fair share of curse words, thrown up hands and visions of me punching David Jaffe in the gut. I enjoy a good puzzle, perhaps of some kittens looking dismayed at the fishy treat denied to them by a glass bowl, or of some horses, congregating at a fence line and broken up into 250 oddly shaped pieces. What I don't like is feeling like I'm making progress only to come to a section where I have to walk across timbers 3 stories in the air and jump rotating saw blade arm thingies. Nothing makes gaming come to a screeching halt quite like doing the same puzzle over and over and over and over. In fact, I was so uninterested in a particular set of puzzles that I didn't play the game for over a month. Granted, I watched Deadwood during that time, but I also did my fair share of rocking out in Guitar Hero, a game who's "puzzles", in contrast, invite, nay, demand your continued attempts at mastery.
That being said, I wouldn't not recommend God of War to folks, as it's production values are superb, it has a good amount of replay value in both an unlockeable new difficulty level and a Challenge of the Gods mode that, when completed, allows you to dress Kratos as a cow using jugs of milk instead of tethered blades. I kid you not. There is also a good number of featurettes explaining how they went about designing the game, the evolution of Kratos, the evolution of the monsters and a gallery of discarded character models. Usually, these peeks behind the curtain require you to pay an extra 10 bucks and buy the Super Extended Collectors' Edition of the game, but those good folks at SCEA have included it all, free of charge. Good on them.
The story is interesting and the cut scenes are top notch, so if you remember a time when your gaming efforts were rewarded with a killer ending movie, you won't be dissappointed. I found Kratos's reason for wanting to kill Ares kind of silly, well not silly, but lacking compared to the level of quality in the rest of the game, but in a game like this, the story is secondary. Hell, I'm happy they had one as developed as they did. There has been some recent hullabaloo, yes hullabaloo, over David Jaffe (the designer of God of War) no longer wanting to make games with stories, wanting instead to focus on the game experience. People were somewhat surprised by this both for what it means for future God of War games and just games in general. First of all, it doesn't mean squat for future God of War games as all they really need to do is just change the story, add some new enemies and perhaps a new combo or two and bam, you have GoW2 and GoW3.
As for the second point, games don't need stories to be good. Tetris doesn't have a story and that game sells in whatever format they put it out in. Sports games don't have stories and they sell like hotcakes. In fact, the only games that need stories to be successful are RPG's and adventure games. That's why the story of all of the Super Mario Bros. games have all been the same, Princess Peach has been kidnapped and Mario must rescue her. I think that the reason for this is that in most games, the gameplay doesn't do anything to tell the story, it's just what you do to get to the next point where more of the story will be told, either by getting to the next geographic part in the game, finding whatever you need to find, or beating whoever you need to beat. The story is then told in cutscenes or conversations or in examining said found item, but I don't remember a time where I obtained a powerful +4 Combo of Plot Revelation.
RPG's and adventure games have conversations as part of their gameplay, so they can move the plot forward with their gameplay, but even that's a bit of a stretch. That's not to say that you can't tell stories, and good ones, with games and even in genres that were traditionally bereft of stories (Hellloooo Half-Life), but Jaffe saying that he doesn't want to do games with stories means just that. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to do good games. God of War had a very specific tone, and takes place in a very specific time period/mythology, so a lot of the gameplay is restricted. It's not like you can throw in a whack-a-mole mini-game or something so I can see why Jaffe might want to cast aside the limitations of story and just focus on gaming. If he can make good games out of it, good for him.
So, to wrap up, God of War has an interesting story, good but slightly repetetive combat, annoying puzzles, superb production values and a level of gore and violence we probably should all be a little ashamed of. At 20 bucks, lower if you score it preowned, it's a pretty good way to spend some time with your PS2. Plus, it has boobs, for whatever that's worth.
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