The Golden Ticket

Success!

The Wii preorder quest was a rousing success, but only because of the high number of EB/Gamestops near my work. I headed to my regular store at about 9:30, thinking that the odds of there being a line were pretty slim. I mean, everyone knew that Nintendo had about a hojillion of these things just waiting to be sold on launch day, right? Yeah, not so much. I was told that the people in the line represented the number of preorder slots available which meant I was essentially, SOL. Thankfully, the store's manager had told all the extra folks, and by extension, everyone in line, that two other stores by us had more units. I decided for the mall store as it was closer to my work (this was during working hours) and I thought have more units, being a mall store and all. I got in VanStar One, hoofed it with a quickness to the mall and headed inside. This line was much longer, but I noticed that the store manager was handing out stickers from a roll and he had a few stickers left.

I got in line and got my sticker, unsure if this meant I'd actually be getting a Wii at launch. Those 360 wounds still haven't healed. I asked the manager if he knew how many he'd be getting in and he said no, but it didn't seem like a real "no" more like a cover your ass "no". I said "You don't know how many you're getting" and he held up the last two stickers and said "All I know is that I've got two left." That was good enough for me and the waiting began. Unfortunately, they only had one clerk to service 30 people, so it took some time, but at that point, I was so happy, I didn't care. I had some good conversations with people in line, and curiously enough, no one spoke of selling their Wii's, or their preorder tickets for that matter. It was nice to see people actually excited for a console, rather than for the insanely large profit said console represents.

Through various trade-in shenanigans, I have managed to pay off part of Super Monkey Ball, half of the Wii, Zelda in its entirety and Marvel Ultimate Alliance (for the 360) in its entirety. On that last title, I'm still figuring out which team I'll go with. Certainly Ghost Rider and Dr. Strange belong there. When I was a wee lad, I wanted to be Doctor Strange with a vengeance. Oh sure, most kids probably wanted to be Superman, what with all of the flying and the invulnerability, however I longed to harnass the mystical powers of the Eye of Agamotto and serve this realm as its Sorceror Supreme I will admit, the leggings are offputting, however I was ok with that. I have very shapely legs.

Ghost Rider, on the other hand, isn't a title I read very often as a boy, however what red blooded lad wouldn't want to be the Spirit of Vengeance? I mean seriously, hid head is on fire and he can ride his motorcycle up buildings. If he could make donuts spontaneously appear, he'd be damn well perfect. I like the combination of him and Strange, for the obvious mystical parallels, however the other playable characters don't offer similar solutions. I could go with the Silver Surfer for a Defenders vibe, but I never really got into that character. The surfboard seems silly. More so than leggings if that's possible. Blade would add a supernatural element and Luke Cage is just a badass, so maybe they'll round out the team. I'd add Thor, but this seems to be the Ultimates version of Thor where nobody believes he's the God of Thunder. I like my Thor old school, where he whacked that fucking hammer down and there weren't any more questions. Don't worry, I still have time to think about it. Feel free to carry on about your day.

Now that I have a Wii on preorder, the desire to purchase even more games is strong. Call of Duty 3, Red Steel, Raving Rabbids all call to me with their siren songs of new control schemes. I hadn't planned on getting Call of Duty 3, but after reading a preview of how much fun it is to play shooters on the Wii, I'm finding it hard to resist. I'm sure I'll get it eventually, but only after playing the holy hell out of Zelda. This is an odd situation, having too many games of interest at a Nintendo launch. Usually the lack of titles is so strong, that you can barely justify purchasing the console, instead looking forward a few months until, no doubt, more titles will make your new purchase slightly less silly. Now, all of the launch titles could end up sucking out, but that seems statistically unlikely, especially given that there's a Zelda title at launch. I guess only time will tell. And what a short amount of time it is. 5 weeks by my count, and what a painful 5 weeks it will be. I think we've discussed in the past how I don't do well with waiting. This shouldn't be any different. Hopefully I can keep my head down, keep on playing Guitar Hero and Clubhouse Games and get through it.

Speaking of Clubhouse Games, it's the shizzle. I said I'd speak about it today, and there, I just did. Only the best for my readers, only the best.

Hell on Rungs

Greetings friends. I must apologize for my absence on Monday. My daughter was sick over the weekend and spent most of the time coughing on your's truly and tainting me with her foul magiks. As a result, I was sick on Monday. Not horribly sick, mind you, just sick enough to not want to be at work, which ended up being a good thing as Abby was still sick and I could help out at home with her. Anyways, I'm back, and seemingly healthy, until the next virus that is.

You may have heard visciously untrue rumors about me today. Rumors that I went into a game store and purchased Club House Games for the DS. I am here to tell you that they are completely untrue. Yes, the person who purchased that game looked like me and sounded like me. Yes, that person paid with a card tied to an account that had been opened with not only an exact match of my social security card, but an exact match of my demographic information. Yes, the person who bought that game drove a minivan matching the color, make, model, trim level and license plate of my own, but I can assure you, it wasn't me.

Come here, I have something to tell you.

Closer.

Closer.

It was totally me.

I know, I know, I'm a weak man. But there are 42 games in this 30 buck package. 42 games! That comes out to 71 cents a game. 71 cents! I can't get a Snickers bar from the vending maching for 71 cents! Come on, it has Spit. Spit! It also has checkers, chinese checkers, chess and bowling. BOOOOOOWWWWLLIIIINNNGGGG!!!! Say what you will about me, I don't care. I'll be too busy playing spades and poker and backgammon. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! I shall regale you tales of club house gamery on Friday. Mark your calendars.

Speaking of games, Linda and I decided to buy Chutes and Ladders for Ben for his 4th birthday a few weeks ago. The box said it was a "classic children's first game" and was for ages 3+. Lies, lies and more lies. It may be old, but I'm not sure I would call it classic. And it might say it's for ages 3+. but I'll be damned if my kid could follow the complex rules set forth in this magnum opus of leisure activities.

Here's something I never knew, and maybe it's just because it's been some time since I played, but Chutes and Ladders is a thinly disguised morality play. The children start at the bottom, in a hellish pit of despair. As they move upwards, no doubt towards the right hand of their kind and loving G-O-D, they come across opportunities for activities. Choices, if you will. A good choice, such as helping a stray puppy find something to eat, allows you to climb a ladder, thereby getting closer to your eventual goal of ascension. A bad choice, like breaking dishware, causes you to slide down a chute into the darkest pits of Hades.

What the game designers failed to understand is that ladders aren't fun, slides are, so all of these life lessons were completely lost on my son, as he thought the goal was to slide down the slides, not climb up the ladder. I can't blame him. Short of an emergency deplaning, I can't think of any sliding situation that would be unfun, but I can think of many ladder based situations that aren't even remotely fun. Cleaning gutters, clearing cobwebs, caulking, installing ceiling fans, all are ladder based activities that I have participated in, and in none of these cases did I get to do this because I helped an old lady across the street.

Not only was the ladder/slide dichotomy lost on Ben, but he seemed incapable of understanding how to count off the blocks to move his cardboard based avatar. He would spin and then stare at me and say "where's one?" I'd show him that one was the block next to the one he's in and help him count from there. Roughly twenty spins later, and twenty questions later, I was ready to find whoever designed this game and Chute them. Ha! Get it? Sometimes he wouldn't ask me where one was, instead choosing to pick random boxes all over the board and move thusly. Truly his is a revolutionary style of gameplay.

It doesn't help that the last row of blcocks in this game is literally plagued with chutes so long, that the player is deposited into the realm of negative numbers. Try explaining to a 4 year old the concept of the left side of the number line while at the same time explaining that you don't want to go down the chutes, because going down the chutes means you have to keep playing this godforsaken game. It is no fun. No fun at all. We had thought about getting Candyland, because what kid doesn't like candy, but between the games redesign into some sort of Burtonian nightmare, and the fact that it requires cards to play, we felt it wasn't the best choice for our household. We've lost so many cards from various matching games in this house, that we ended up combining all of the remaining cards, and now the only way to win is to match a Triceratops with Spider-Man.

My son's daycare teacher has told us that Ben is exceptionally smart, as he's the only child who can tell her what month it is and other calendar based questions. Personally, I think she should play a board game with him before she starts getting him ready for Harvard. I can only assume that the environment at school is better suited to stimulate his young mind, as when we ask him what month it is, he responds with either "purple" or "eeeee!!!!' or "because, because, because I love him." Oooookay. Next time, instead of a board game, we can just buy him a dayplanner.

Hard Choices

With this holiday season's glut of gaming goodness, we have come to the time where we need to make hard choices about where to spend our hard earned cash. I assume you earn your cash, it's possible you steal it or inherited it. I really have no idea.

Even if we weren't on the precipice of not one, but two console launches, there would be so many titles coming out in the fall months to render your wallet near weightless. I say two console launches, but truth be told, I have no fucking idea what to call the PS3 launch. I mean, yes, technically, on the 17th of November, the PS3 will be available for purchase, provided you can find a store or person that has one to actually sell you. Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Circuit City and EB/Gamestop account for roughly 10,000 stores in the US which means a grand total of 4, yes that's correct, 4 PS3's per store at launch. 4, as in the number of fingers on your hand after trying to trim your thumbnail with a table saw. The thought that you could be the baddest motherfucker on the planet, someone who is willing to do the hard wait in line time and have your intentions thwarted by a group of people small enough to fit in a Civic hatchback leaves me feeling like this PS3 launch is just some silly PR stunt so that Sony can say they launched in November, for all that fucking matters.

I am curious to know if there is someone out there who actually thinks they'll get a PS3 at launch. I mean, I don't know anyone who actually wants one, much less is foolish enough to think they'll actually get one. I don't doubt that there are people out there planning to get in line a good week or so prior to launch day to ensure they get ushered into this brave new world of next generation tomfoolery, but I'll be damned if I know any of 'em. Personally, I couldn't tell you one game launching with the PS3, so even if I had no plans for the week leading up to the 17th, I'm not sure what I'd play on the blasted thing once I got it home. I dunno, maybe watch the Fifth Element on Blu-ray? Fuck if I know. I seem to remember the warrior cry of Riiiidge Raaaaacer let loose during E3, so I can assume racing on ridges, or possibly Ruffles, will be available.

We have already spoken of the Wii and my unbridled enthusiasm for it. It too represents a significant outlay of cash, of which we have also already spoken. Every week, Friday to be specific, I call my local Gamestop to inquire as to the status of preorders. I already know the answer, as I'm not so foolish as to believe that news of Gamestop taking preorders will first come to me from my local store, rather than the raging fires of the Intraweeb. I feel foolish calling like this, not because I already know the answer and am desperately clinging to hope, but because in my mind, they know it's me. They're sitting, timing their day by my call and then, after hanging up, they laugh and laugh and laugh, possibly taking a Wii preorder from some other customer at the same time. Truth be told, they have no idea who I am, despite that store being the only store I buy from, and many purchases at that. This is the strange, narcissistic world I live in.

When I called today, they told me they'd know about preorders in about a week and a half. Take it for what it's worth. I give it more creedence than usual, as that would be about a month out from launch and that has a level of symmetry I can latch on and cling to for dear life.

We have spoken of the gaming moritorium, however I am asking for a reprieve so that I may purchase Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the 360. I know that I had spoken before about buying this for the Wii, and it pains me to not have this be the means with which I support the new console, however this game is setting my gaming cabal afire with comic book geekery. For Christ's sake, we are discussing how much we would pay to purchase the Great Lakes Avengers. For the record, I have called dibs on Monkey Joe. The promise of online coop and not just coop, but competetive coop, by which I can let Bones pummel the Mandarin's henchmen to near death with Captain America, only to have me and Ghost Rider come in at the last moment and, with a flick of my hellish chains, steal his kills, is too much to resist. I have instead, decided to purchase the next instance of Splinter Cell for the Wii, rather than the 360 as I am quite possibly the worst online Splinter Cell player in the history of digital entertainment. Besides, Ubisoft is supporting the Wii with a fervor I am unaccustomed to seeing for Nintendo products, so it only makes sense that I return the favor. I played the first Splinter Cell on the 'Cube and found it neck snappingly delightful.

Between these games, Zelda, Guitar Hero 2, the next Super Monkey Ball outing, possibly Rayman: Raving Rabbids, possibly Call of Duty 3 and possibly Gears of War, we're talking a momentous amount of cash. So much, that I may have to actually depend on family members to provide me with these games as holiday offerings. This scares me, as traditionally, my mother-in-law does all of her shopping at garage sales and I fear what she would return with were I to send her out to find monkey balls.

It Burns!

Recently, today actually, someone in my cabal of fellow Xbox gamers mentioned that some member of his family was in the market for a new A/V receiver. As I am drawn to the A/V desires of others like a moth to the flame, I couldn't help but offer my assistance in researching possible options. Some would call me nosy, others would call me helpful. This is something I do. I enjoy researching A/V stuff, so when I see someone in need, I swoop down and offer to Google things for them. Not sure what about their lives is so compelling that they themselves can't Google things, but obviously they have more going on than I do. I am ok with this.

His list of features is as follows:

• THX certification
• HDMI switching
• auto setup with microphone
• $1000 ceiling
• ability to have HDMI audio out to speakers and TV at the same time

Not really sure why that last one is important, but it sounds like something a wife would ask for, so it becomes more necessary than the other parts. I haven't found anything yet, at least not with all of those features but I remain undaunted. This is the part I enjoy the most of the hunt, the comparing and contrasting of the various units, further whittling down the choices until finally the best choice stands alone, gleaming in the sun. I know it's strange, but it's either this or pornography and frankly, I have a better chance of getting with a Yamaha RX-V2600 than I do a Playboy playmate, so forgive me if I hedge my bets towards the hardware.

What this does though, is make me want all new A/V equipment. When I see the joys of HDMI switching, I want it, I crave it despite the fact that in my basement I have a grand total of 1 item that can output an HDMI signal and said item, when hooked up to my projector via HDMI, doesn't look any better than via component video. I want 7.1 processing, even though there aren't any 7.1 dvd's out there, and my receiver is smart enough to take 5.1 and make it 7.1. I want THX certification even though I have no idea what that is, nor what that will give me other than the approving gaze of a one Mr. George Lucas. I want 1080p upconversion even though I don't have any displays in my house capable of such a glorious picture, nor would I of the altered flaps notice any difference between that and 1080i. I want these things because they're out there, I'm reading about them and I can get them in a receiver that's the same price as the one I bought a year ago.

Bah! No sense pining over things I can't have. I guess I can calibrate my tv in the meantime to help take the edge off of things and I'll always have my Radio Shack sound meter for those cold, cold nights. 80 dB never felt so good.

The Copemeister

As my recent posts show, I spent Saturday night at the Citizen Cope show. Despite the fact that I spent 4 hours at the blasted place, it was an awesome show.

For those of you unclear with the modern concert going experience, allow me to illuminate the goings-ons. First you go online and buy tickets, complete with massive processing fee and shipping fee and other related bullshit fees that make a 20 buck ticket cost somewhere near 4.7 billion dollars. Then, the tickets come and you see printed right on it, "doors open at 8" which is code for "show starts sometime mid-23rd century."

But, being the good little concert goer you are, you get there for close to 8 because even though you know with every fiber of your being that the show won't start anywhere close to 8 PM, you're a hopeful sort. You get there and see that there's parking right under the theatre, wahey, but it's more than double what you usually pay when you park downtown, boo-hoo. Unfortunately, you don't know the area very well and even though your super cool van can get you home from even the deepest reaches of the oceans, you fear getting lost in a hellish nightmare of one-way streets and panhandling hobos. You pay the 15 bucks and head up to wait in line.

This being an all ages show, you're surrounded by teenagers which do nothing but make you think ahead to when your kids are teenagers and you have to sit your daughter down and tell her that only when the blackist, hottest pits of hades are touched with the icy finger of winter will you let her venture out into the world dressed like a whoring slut monkey. As you look around at everyone who apparantly walked out of either a J Crew or Hollister catalog, you look down at your own Nintendo t-shirt and Old Navy cargo shorts and feel as if perhaps there was something else printed on the ticket in regards to a dress code and you just missed it. You think back to when you were younger and single and used to go to rock shows and how it never occurred to you that perhaps you should dress nicely because you might meet someone there. Then you remember that you used to go to rock shows with Pete Childs and he used to make you smuggle a microphone in your pants so that he could illegally tape the Robert Plant show.

Eventually you make it inside, check out the merch table with it's substandard selection of t-shirts and then find your seat. The concert hall was very nice and small so there really weren't any bad seats. Plus there was ample floor space for those that wanted to rock out on the floor, thereby enabling those of us who were tired from day 2 of their son's birthday weekend to sit and be mellow. Usually I dance at shows, but not that night. I was tired, and I wanted to just sit. Thankfully, for the most part I could, except for the times where all of the teenage girls in front of me kept getting up to go to the floor and then coming back and then going and then coming back and then texting their friends on the floor so that they could find them when they went and on and on and on.

At 9:30, Alice Smith took the stage with Cope's band. She's a very good soul singer. Great pipes, nice stage presence, good songs, the whole nine yards. The only annoying thing was that they did this echo, reverb thingy on her voice when she held notes at the end of her songs. I would have preferred she just sang, but that's just me. If you see thet she's coming to your town, perhaps in a headlining for Cope capacity, and you like funky soul music and great vocals, I highly recommend seeing her. Her album dropped at the beginning of September, so perhaps some Googling might be in order.

Finally, at around 10:30, Cope took the stage. Most of the stuff he played was from his last album, not his new one, which I thought was kind of strange. He did play "Brother Lee" from the new joint, which is one of my favorite Cope songs evar and did a fucking awesome job on it as well. His band was really talented with not just one, but two guys on keyboards. When they played "Son's Gonna Rise", to much crowd excitement by the way, they traded in the guitar solor for some pretty badass organ/keyboard work giving the song a whole different sound but not reducing the intensity one bit. It was really quite impressive.

Once the show was over, I left so that I could watch the encores from the stairwell, thereby allowing me easy access to the parking garage. The garage's layout was such that I knew that waiting until the show was completely over would result in me being trapped there for all eternity so I decided to trade a little of my rock soul in for a quick departure. I watched pretty much all of the encore, until the usher told me I couldn't stand in the stairwell anymore. I took that as a sign that the show was about to end and hightailed it on out of there. In truth, by that time, I had heard all the songs I wanted to, including "Picasso's Theme", "Penitentiary" and "D'Artagnan's Theme" so I was satisfied. Plus, at this point it was after midnight and I had been there for 4 hours. I was tired and had a 30 minute drive ahead of me, so I bid Cope, the theatre and the pimped out teenyboppers adieu.

Despite all of my complaining, I had a great time and heard some really good music, so it was all worth it. I would definitely go back to see a show there as it's a nice theatre and all of the seats are great. Maybe I'll even dance next time. To answer Andy's question, yes I was photo blogging from my fancy doodad wotsit directly from the show, and yes, it was dope. That's me, dope at Cope. Heh-heh-heh.

Encore

Damn good show, but it's late and I'm frakkin' exhausted. More on Monday.

Soultastic!

10:15 and still no Cope, but at least Alice Smith was good.

The Hermit Leaves His Cave

Looky here. I'm actually out on a Saturday night.

Here's the stage, pre-Cope. Wahey!

The Waiting

Ah waiting. Oh how I hate it as I'm terrible at it. I have so very little patience to wait for anything that I'm remotely interested in. It's really quite annoying to live with myself. Truly.

Last night I finished up watching season 2.5 of Battlestar Galactica, so now, not only am I waiting for the new season to start on October 6th, but I'll have to wait a week in between episodes. Television on DVD is a wonderful thing, until such time as you have to switch over to watching episodes as they are broadcast. Oh sure, I could record all the episodes as they're broadcast and then watch them one after another, or wait for the season to beon DVD again, but this is a 20 episode season we're talking about, so without any breaks for the holidays, you're talking 5 months. That would kill me, especially in these spoiler laden times when you can find out who gets killed on Desperate Housewives by reading the back of a cereal box. Plus, I've never been one for delayed gratification, so if the episode is on the Tivo, by God, I'm going to watch it as soon as I can. I might not even wait for it to finish recording, instead just giving myself enough of a buffer to allow me to zip past commercials.

I am also waiting for the Gamestop, or Electronics Boutique to start taking Wii preorders. I'm sure that Nintendo will have plenty of units at launch, so I can probably get one on the 19th, but I'm neither a young man, nor someone who wants to drag his family all over town so my desire for launch day shenanigans is pretty much zero. I realize it's silly to assume that preordering will guarantee me a unit, given the 360 fiasco, however the fact that the stores don't even know if they'll be taking preorders until they find out how many units they'll be getting leads me to believe that if you put your money down, you'll get one, short of a tragic accident involving a freighter full of Wii and a coral reef. Preordering at a games store also allows me to trade stuff in towards the price, thereby reducing my out of pocket expense, but I can assure you that I have run various scenarios (scenarii?) involving a combination of vendors and all allow me to take advantage of the trade scene in some fashion. Don't you worry about that. In reality though, preordering gives me something, even if it's just a receipt, that says "the Wii is coming". I'm so excited for this console that the next 7 weeks will be hellish without some sort of activity to ensure my upcoming Wii-ness.

Guitar Hero 2 is officially coming for the 360, complete with it's own controller. Now it becomes a matter of when. The version for the PS2 comes out at the end of October (the 24th I believe) with the 360 version following in 07. I've said before that I'd happily buy both versions, however I'm somewhat less happy about having to buy another guitar so if 07 meant January, I'd probably wait, despite how painful it would be to do so. My understanding is that a 5 song demo disc will be released with some sort of PS2 magazine soon, so that could very easily hold me over, especially considering how my lull from rocking out will no doubt result in a slide backwards. If 07 means March or April though, well, I'm as free as a bird now, and this bird you can not change. I'm dissappointed that the 360 axe isn't wireless, but at the same time, if I do have to end up buying another guitar, anything to keep the price down will be appreciated. Now all I need to do is make friends with someone local who wants to rock the double Skynard solo. I'm not sure what the etiquette is for concurrent solos as to whether you solo axe to axe, or leaning back to back, or you stand on one side of the stage doing your thing and your partner does the same on their side. I would think that not working that out ahead of time could have disastrous long term consequences but I have no concrete evidence to support this. The members of Poison always seemed wary of CeCe, but that could be because he was, well, CeCe.

Now that it's Friday and this week's bowling is behind me, I now have to wait another whole week until I can try again to break the league triple digit mark, or the LTD. Bowling over 100 when it's just you and the snack bar guy to mark your progress don't mean shit if you can't then parlay that score into something that helps your team. I'm making progress, up to a 93 avg for today's games, from an 80-something last week, but the 100 pt mark is proving to be elusive. Thankfully, my teammates bowled in the subpar range as well, so I'm not dragging the average down. Not too much anyways. At this rate of improvement, next Friday may be the week. Fingers crossed.

So Sorry

I apologize for the lack of a post on Wednesday. My breakfast of choice ended up being a sleeper cell of gastroenterological terrorism. I think we have weeded out all of the insurgents and sent them to the bowels of my septic tank. We'll see. Friday I shall return with a post of unimagineable postitude.

Triple D

Today I bowled a 122, only the second time in my recently started bowling career that I cracked the elusive triple digit mark. Is it a coincidence that this attainment of such a lofty goal occurred upon taking ownership of Pinslayer? I say nay, however you may choose to believe differently at your own peril. Part of what allowed me to enter the Triple Digit Club, or as we in bowling circles call, Chez TD, is that I bowled alone, unfettered by the heavy eyes of my coworkers/teammates. They are better bowlers than I am, easily obtaining scores in the 140 - 150 range, while I act as the team anchor however not in a steadying capacity, but more in a drag us to the bottom of the ocean capacity. In order to realize my full bowling potential I needed to be away from prying eyes, free of the burdens of their expectations. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of showing them the proof of my new found success, in the form of scoreboard picturephonery so I fear that in their mind, Friday's match has already been won. I can only hope that I can rise to their level, become the bowler they wish, nay, they need me to be and deliver them victory. Pinslayer deserves no less.

This weekend our house was turned into some sort of Critter Corner. On Saturday, as we frolicked in the front yard, and I attempted to teach my son how to catch a football, a fruitless endeavor for those keeping track at home, we were ignorant of the danger that lay in our midst. Just a short distance from us, under a bush, awaited a rabbit, and not just any rabbit, but a pretty goddamned dead rabbit. Luckily, despite jumping 10 feet away from the bush, as if Sasquatch itself emerged from the leafy shadows, my kids thought I was just being silly, or having another one of my usual uncoordinated tripping spells and we were able to spare them the sight of the Velveteen Homicide. I called animal control, as I would imagine that they would want to know if the rabbit died of rabies and I sure as hell don't know how to get rid of the thing, but they weren't around and a bunny corpse didn't seem quite like an emergency even in a town with a crime blotter filled with nothing but cases of dirty looks and harsh language. Instead, I was told to call back on Sunday. I figured the rabbit wasn't going anywhere, a notion that proved to be somewhat on the wildly incorrect side. The next morning, I checked his resting place and our friend was nowhere to be found. Great. As if having a rabbit on the property wasn't enough, now we have zombie rabbits. I'm hoping they eat only rabbit brains, and not human brains. I'm really not sure how this whole thing works. I'll keep you appraised.

On Sunday while I stayed at home with Abby, Linda and Ben went to the grocery store. At least they tried to, but there was a 3ft black rat snake hanging out behind Linda's car. I'm pretty sure it's the same one that used to hang out on the stoop, and may be the same one that left a good sized snake skin in our basement. Size wise, it was similar anyways. Not being one to shy away from a good snake handling, I donned my trusty leather gloves, picked our friend up and relocated him to another part of the yard. Now, lest you think I'm some sort of idiot who just picks up random snakes, I have a field guide to this state's snakes, complete with bunches of color photos, so I knew this snake wasn't poisonous. The leather gloves, and my keen handling of our scaly friend meant that were he to try and strike my forearm, he wouldn't be able to. It was an interesting experience. They're quite wily, those snakes and can move fairly quickly so that one second you're holding it behind it's head and the next you're holding it at it's midpoint. Granted, I didn't want to crush the poor thing, so I was unclear as to how much pressure I could put on it, but still. For the record, I wanted to bring it farther away from the house, but once I was only holding it at its midpoint, and the tender flesh of my forearm was well within striking range, Mr. Snake and I bid each other farewell. As I said, I would have wanted to bring him to the woods where food was probably more plentiful, however snakes don't respond well to soothing tones, so he was unclear as to my benevolent intent. Hopefully he was able to find something to eat in the holly trees on our property line. I think there's an Arby's in there run by chipmunks.

As you can tell, it's been a busy few days, what with the zombie rabbits, snake handling and stratospheric bowling scores. I can only hope that the rest of the week is sedate in comparison. Just to be safe, I'm putting out some carrots in the hopes that I can lure some more rabbits to the house. Better to give the zombie something to eat than make him look for something. Or someone.

Morning Visitor

Good morning Ms. Mantis. Please don't forget to sign in at the security desk. Thank you.

The Science of Blah

When I cracked open my handy-dandy list of science questions, I was greeted with a collection of questions that will take more than an afternoon of research. As a result of my poor planning, the science post is on break for this week. Truth be told, I'm starting to run out of questions so this hiatus may run for longer than one week at some point in the future. Not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I can always do science stuff whenever I want to, as I do own this place (well rent is probably a more accurate term) but on the other hand, I like the schedule we've got going here. Also, I don't have an interesting enough life to fill up both Monday and Wednesday with my exploits. I may have to start making shit up.

It was confirmed today that Red Octane will be bringing Guitar Hero 2 to "every significant format" in 2007. Yay! Not sure how Guitar Hero would work on the DS and I know Activision isn't saying that the DS is insignificant, but I'm sure they'll work something out. Now, does this mean that I'll hold out on purchasing GH2 in November so that I only have to buy it once for the 360? Um, that would be no. I am more than happy to put money in Red Octane's coffers so that they continue to make these wonderful games. Plus, I'm sure the song list will be slightly different on each console to ensure that there's some miniscule rationale for multiple purchases. I hope that somehow I can use my PS2 guitar with the 360, but I would be ok with not being able to if I can have a wireless guitar.

That's about all I have. Enjoy your Windsday.

Bowl-A-Rama

Friday was my first day in our work's bowling league. Yes, that's right, I said bowling league. Save your mocking, as there will be plenty of opportunities for that as I delve further into my ten pin experiences.

My work is somewhat obsessed with bowling. Despite the fact that they're all not 65 year old men named Frank or Lumpy or Lumpy Frank, they're quite enamored with the sport. My two teammates not only bowl, but hook bowl and are more than happy to illuminate the differences between straight bowling, which is what I do, and hook bowling, which is what they do. Along with differences in form, how the ball is built, how it's drilled and how it's held, the main difference is that when they bowl, they knock down pins and when I bowl, I don't.

Given that I'm down for any sport I can take part in while eating chili fries, I was more than happy to join the league. For 40 bucks you get to bowl two games a week for four weeks and then when you're done, you get a free ball, custom drilled to your exact specifications, as long as your exact specifications involve you being a straight bowler. The finger tip grip that is the bread and butter of the hook bowler apparantly costs around 20 bucks more. I declined this option as I felt adding hooking to my repertoire was not only physically dangerous but too grammatically ambiguous to be considered safe. I have discussed my ball before, and you'll be happy to know that Pinslayer is being forged in the pits of Mount Doom as we speak, its polyester coverstock being polished to a high gloss, destructive sheen. Look upon my ball ye mighty, and despair.

As I have not bowled in years, I was looking to do two things. First was to break 50 in at least one game. Second was to not injure or embarass myself. I figured it was a safe bet to lump the two together as I'm pretty sure any injury that occurs at a bowling alley would be pretty fucking embarassing, short of an injury obtained while foiling a robbery. You'll be happy to learn that I succeeded on the scoring front, and somewhat succeeded on the injury front. I say somewhat because while I did not leave the bowling alley with an apparant injury, it did not take long for both my right shoulder and my left quadriceps to feel as if they had been injected with living flame. Only today has the pain in my leg subsided to where I can walk normally, or at least what passes as normal for me. Yes, it's true, I am too out of shape to bowl. When I say this line, I am reminded of the "I'm too lazy to fish" line from Brian Regan's routine and it makes me giggle.

I am not the only person who has experienced bowling pain as my boss told me that my quads would soon be incomprehensibly sore. I can understand the shoulder as I bowl with a 15 pound ball, or as we say in the bowling biz, a 15 pound ball, and swinging a 15 pound weight 20 times over 2 games would make anyone sore. The quads were completley surprising, however given that when bowling, you drop down as if doing a squat thrust, always on the same leg, it kind of makes sense. My quads did not seem to care whether or not I understood where their discomfort came from and were more than happy to express their unhappiness with the situation for the entire weekend. I'm hoping that subsequent, regular trips to the lanes will condition me so that I am no longer incapacitated after a league meeting. I'm also hoping that the ensuing massive development in my right shoulder and left thigh will somehow balance out and I don't end up walking with a pronounced tilt to one side or another.

I ended up with a 75 average over the two games, scoring 68 on the first and 81 on the other. I opened up strong with a strike on the first frame of my first game. For a brief, shining moment, I thought I was some sort of bowling savant and I'd be rolling strikes all game long. Then, for my second frame, I stepped over the foul line and the ensuing buzzer sound echoed through the bowling alley, carrying my hopes for bowling excellence with it. My third frame was two gutters in a row, so frazzled was I. I managed to get it together, however I think it's safe to say that the leaderboard of the PBA is safe from my intrusion.

This comes at the right time as I'm starting to get a little bigger around the middle than I am entirely comfortable with, and I am loathe to exercise. Bowling, while not on par with running or biking, for exercise, will allow me to get some form of physical exertion into my day while at the same time, watch cheesy CGI animations of bowling balls mowing down terrified pins. As long as I stay away from the aforementioned chili fries, we should make some headway towards losing a few pounds. Plus, I seem to not completely suck at it, unlike most sports, so my initial level of confidence is higher than if I decided to take up, say hockey. I'm sure this week I'll bowl somewhere in the low thirties and all of this will be for nothing, but until then, I'm staying optimistic. It's only a matter of time before I'll be hooking with the best of them.

Wii-vealed

All the details for the Wii have come to light and they lay before us, glistening with morning dew. Price is $250, or $249.99 if you want to be entirely correct. Date is November 19th, a scant two days after the PS3 launch. In a move that can only be described as "old school" they are bundling Wii Sports with the game, so out of the box you can bowl, box, golf, play tennis and play baseball. The unit comes with one Wiimote (the standard controller) and a nunchuk FPS joystick thingy. Extra controllers are $40 for the Wiimote and $20 for the nunchuk. A classic NES type controller will cost something like 30 or 40 bucks, I don't remember.

As for the Virtual Console for old Nintendo games, NES games are like 4 or 5 bucks, SNES games are like 6 or 7 bucks and N64 games are 10 bucks. Nintendo points, or whatever they're calling the points, needed to buy games will be sold in stores like Microsoft Points, but at a more mathematically appealing ratio of 1 dollar equals 100 points. In Japan anyways, buying a 5000 point card will score you a NES style controller, so I'm sure they'll do the same thing here. Not sure if the 'Cube controllers will work with the virtual console games or not, but I'm leaning towards them not being compatible as they would be silly to deny themselves an extra source of accessory revenue, high accessory attachment rates being some sort of benchmark for success in this strange world we live in.

Something like 24 titles will be available at launch which includes the new Zelda and 23 other games I could care less about. That's not entirely true. Red Steel looks like it could be good, and I'm more than happy to forego the high polished sheen of the 360 version of Splinter Cell: Double Agent if the Wii version played well and would allow me to throw support to the new box at the same time. I am also willing to give up online co-op through Live on Marvel Alliance for the Wii version as the Wii version supports motion control for the Marvel heroes you pick for your adventuring. Yes, you read that right, motion control. That means that when you select Spidey and want to perform his move where you sling webs, entrap your enemy and fling your enemy into the open claws of a one Wol V. Rine, you do so with a combination of button pressing and arm flinging then quick switch over to Wolvie and make with the stabbing. I guess it says something about me that I will gladly forego contact with other humans so that I can pretend to be a superhero in my basement, but it's something that has been alluded to, if not said directly before. If somehow they could combine this with Guitar Hero 2 so that I could dispatch an enemy by throwing Cap's shield and then rip into the solo in "Sweet Child of Mine" I would pass out from sheer gaming bliss.

The Wii also will come with channels allowing your to surf the web, provided you pay for a browser, check the weather, and other, so far unmentioned things. Whatever. As a rule, I don't pay for browsers and I don't care about the weather, shunning the light of day for the warm, comforting glow of my basement's light bulbs. I'm not opposed to having it available on the box, but it's not something I would spend a lot of time talking about either.

As you can tell, I am very, very excited for this launch. I think Nintendo has done a very good job managing this launch, other than the name change, and are set up to do well with this console, provided a) the motion stuff is more than just a gimmick and b) hardware is available for any and all that want to buy one. I'm a little surprised that the price is north of $200, however the addition of a game certainly helps and I need to keep in mind that it was the slavering media that was pushing the $200 price, not Nintendo itself. I can't be dissappointed when something turns out to be true only in my wildest fantasies. It is my belief that Nintendo had two prices in mind, one where they'd probably take a hit on every console they sold ($200ish) and one where they didn't ($250) and they were simply waiting to see the price of the PS3 to decide which one to go with. The day of the PS3 pricing announcement was probably marked on Nintendo calendars as an annual holiday to celebrate from here until eternity, as it let them to price their console at a price that allows them to be profitable from day one and at the same time be $250 cheaper than the lowest priced PS3.

I'm sure that the pricing info and the Sony launch number information (400k units for the US at launch) also played into the Nintendo launch date. The PS3 will come out, immediately sell out as the hardcore gamers flock to stores and buy them, leaving store shelves a barren gaming wasteland. Just think back to November of last year when you tried to get a 360. Then, two days later, in comes the Wii, filling store shelves in time for Black Friday at a price that is half of a a PS3 and 150 less than a non-crippled 360. Now, this is assuming that Nintendo will have plenty of units on hand to sell, but seeing how there's nothing inherently next gen about it (unlike the PS3) and they're used to making consoles from non-off-the-shelf parts (unlike with the 360) I would be very, very surprised if they didn't have the Wii everywhere come Black Friday. Nintendo would have to be brimming with unadulterated stupidity to not see this holiday season as nothing but a massive opportunity to sell consoles and react with the right numbers. Sony seems to believe that people will buy their console regardless of the price, whenever folks can get their hands on it, and to a certain degree they're right. The Wii, on the other hand, is trying to get casual gamers, and non-gamers involved, and you can't do that if the only way you can get a Wii is to import it from Japan. If Nintendo can get themselves listed as one of the hot toys of the season and millions of people watch Matt Lauer and Meredith whoever play Wii Tennis on the Today show, they can, in the words of Fiddy, "sit back and watch the money pile up".

Personally I am thrilled with the addition of bowling to Wii Sports as I love a good bowling game, and that, coupled with golf and tennis all in one game will keep me playing forever. Zelda has looked good from day one and the inclusion of motion control for sword swinging only makes it better. I'll buy Red Steel if it ends up being good, however if reviews don't paint it as an enjoyable experience, I won't be bothered too much except to feel a pang of regret for the developers as from what I've read, they seem to have taken the user experience into account throughout the development cycle and made changes as necessary, which seems somewhat out of touch with how games are made these days. Trauma Center I already played, or lived through I should say, and I'd rather not do so again, partly because it was an incredible frustrating experience at times, and partly because it brings back memories of playing my DS at 3 in the morning in Russia due to insomnia fueled by a combination of jet lag and pre-child-meeting jitters.

Now that we have a launch date and price we have enacted a game buying moritorium in the household. Yes, that's right, no new games until the Wii launch. I have Splinter Cell for the 360 preordered and will make a decision as to what to do with that money when the time comes, but other than that, all game buying money will be put towards preordering the Wii. This also means that GRAW and Dead Rising will become casualties of the trade in war as they give up their souls so that I might have more money for my preorder. I figure all told, the launch day price will be about 340 as I'll be buying Zelda and another Wiimote for the wife. That's not factoring in the price of component cables, but seeing how I don't know that price, ignorance truly is bliss. I'm a little perturbed at the price of the controllers, as 60 bucks seems like a lot for a Wiimote + nunchuk combo, however I'm thinking that Nintendo is expecting most casual gamers to only need the Wiimote which is priced similar to first party controllers for other consoles. Add to this price tag the cost of Guitar Hero 2 when it comes out, and possibly Gears of War and you have one very expensive November. Most likely I'll skip Gears of War at launch as I'll have too much to do between shredding mad tracks and picking up spares, but at the same time, I don't want my 360 to feel left out. I also like CliffyB and his rakish wit.

The moritorium will be difficult as we approach the late October, early November time frame, however we must keep our eyes on the prize, or at least keep tabs on the prize, perhaps through some sort of prize monitoring system or prize nanny. Between Oblivion, Burnout, poker and Guitar Hero on the big screen front, Metroid, Tetris and Star Fox on the small screen front, not only will I have enough to keep me occupied, but every completed game is more cash towards the launch price. I have been happily avoiding all gaming for some time now as I get caught up on Battlestar Galactica, so I can also supplement game time with TV time as events warrant. Hopefully I'll actually get one at launch this time. I will head to the Stop of Game this afternoon to inquire about preordering and take the appropriate action. As a joke, I could also ask about preordering the PS3, however I would rather not be beaten about the head and neck with a copy of Game Informer, so I'll probably skip it.

When I started thinking about this post, I was going to address the folks on teh Intraweb whose job is to hate everything in existence and provide a rebuttal for their concerns, but then I realized that I don't give a flying fuck whether or not they buy a Wii, as if they don't there will be more out there for people who want to buy one and, by extension, like having fun. Most of their arguments are marinated in stupidity anyways, and handling said opinions, if only to turn them over to get a full understanding, would place their foul stench upon me and I prefer to stay my usual, sweet smelling self. So far, I am very impressed with how Nintendo has handled this launch and like to think this will continue until I see something that convinces me otherwise, rather than assume this is all some sort of fluke and failure looms on the horizon. I'll leave those dire predictions to others as they seem better suited to the task, what with their proven record of hating everything ever. I'll be over here, patiently waiting until November if you need me.

Not to Be Confused With Q*bert

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back.

Today's question comes from Andy who asks:

What makes a quantum computer so different (and so much faster) than a
conventional computer?

For those old school individuals in the audience, I could make a joke that the quantum computers eat their Wheaties. Newer members to the consumer collective might appreciate it more if I said that the quantum computer slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night. Ha ha, ho ho, it is to laugh.

What makes quantum computers so different, and potentially so much faster (the key word being potentially) comes down to bits. Doesn't it always? Maybe not.

In a classical computer (the computers we know and love today) bits are the building blocks for a computer's instructions and contain either a 1 or a 0. The bits may be saved as a punch out on a punch card, or the magnetization on a hard drive or the charge on a capacitor's plate. By sequencing these bits together and putting them through various logic gates, computers can perform the instructions we ask them to. The thing to keep in mind here, and this will be important when we talk about quantum computers, is that in a classical computer, a bit is either a 1 or a 0 which means that if you have a 1 and you need a 0 you need to do some transformation on it, through a logic gate for example, to do so.

Quantum computers, on the other hand, also uses bits, which also contain 1s and 0s, however due to the joy of quantum mechanics, namely superposition, a quantum bit, or qubit as they're called, can be a 1, a 0 and a superposition of the two all at the same time. Quantum mechanics gives you three bits for the price of one, cutting out the middleman and passing the savings directly on to you.

This superposition allows quantum computers to be exponentially faster than classical computers. Let's take a register that contains three bits. Such a register can have 8 possible values (2^3). With a classical computer, the register can only have one out of those 8 possible values in it at any one time. A quantum computer on the other hand, has all 8 values in the register at the same time. Not only can the quantum computer have all the numbers in the register at the same time, but operations can be performed on all 8 numbers at the same time. Let's say we have an extremely slow and simple computer that can perform an operation on a value in the register every second. For a classical computer it would take 8 seconds for every possible value in the register to have an operation performed upon it. A quantum computer could do the same operations in all possible values in one second. Now, you could get the classical computer to perform an operation on all possible values in the register in one second, provided you had 8 registers and each register had a unique value and had the operation performed upon it in parallel.

It is important to point out that a quantum computer can't do more things, or different things than a classical computer, it can just do them in less time and with less memory. Take factorization for example. If you were to take two very large prime numbers and multiply them together, it wouldn't take you, or a classical computer very long to come up with the answer. Now if we were to take the product of those two numbers and try and figure out what was multiplied with what to get that number, it would take you, and a classical computer much, much longer to do so. Many data encryption models are based on this fact. It is possible for a classical computer to factorize extremely large numbers, but the amount of time it would take to do so is so huge that the act may as well be impossible. For a quantum computer on the other hand, this would be a piece of cake, and in reality, should someone come up with a quantum computer tomorrow that had the same computational abilities as a classical computer, most data encryption and data security as we know it today would be kaput. We're talking some serious, black box in "Sneakers" kind of shit.

This doesn't mean that you have to cancel your Paypal account just yet, as we're a long way off from having such a functioning quantum computer. As we discussed in previous posts, as you increase the complexity of a quantum system, so does the chance that the system will interact with the outside environment and collapse into one state or another. In order for a quantum computer to approach the level of a classical computer, you'd need a pretty complex system with a pretty high risk of decoherence. Presently, I think the largest quantum computer has been either 5 or 7 qubits. Impressive, no doubt, but nothing you'll be playing Unreal Tournament 2007 on any time soon.

Will we see a quantum computer in our lifetimes? It's hard to say, as the present limitations are based on what we know of science today, and what we know of science today will be vastly different from what we know of science tomorrow. Personally, I'll be happy if we don't ever see one, because I have a hard enough time as it is explaining to my mother-in-law how to sort her email by sender without bringing quantum superposition into the conversation.

HowStuffWorks.com - How A Quantum Computer Will Work, Kevin Bonsor
The Quantum Computer - Jacob West, Cal Tech
Wikipedia - Quantum Computer
Centre for Quantum Computation - A short Introduction to Quantum Computation

This is the Monday Port

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.

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.

New Digs

This all looks verrrrry familiar.

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.

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.

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.

Songs for the Deaf, Track 2

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back.

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

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.

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.

Aw yeah. We just got mobile all up in this beeyotch.

I'm Not Dead Yet

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back. Today's question comes from Dennis, who, in a fit of feline concern asks:

Is Schrodinger's Cat dead yet?

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?

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"