OK people, settle down, settle down. We have a lot to cover in a short amount of time, so let's get right to it. Today's material is on diagnosing the sick toddler. Now, as doctors you'll often have to diagnose people who have a hard time communicating what is wrong with them. This is hard enough as it is, however when you're dealing with a person who is completely removed from the actual happenings of the physical world, the toddler for example, this becomes even more difficult. Also, due to the rambling, stream of consciousness nature of these creatures, often times the maladies will change from moment to moment, making treatment a difficult situation. Let's just jump into some examples so that we can see what works and what doesn't.
Situation 1: Normally cheerful toddler is picked up at daycare, having been crying for no reason for the past hour. Upon calming down said toddler, you are able to ask him what is wrong. His response is "A spider bit me on my finger." OK....Johnson, go.
Johnson: Well, I'd try and find out what spider bit him so that we could call the hospital and prepare an anti-venom, then I'd---
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Stevens, go.
Stevens: I'd inspect the afflicted finger and kiss it to make it better.
Correct. Moving on. Once you get the child calmed down you get him and his sister out to the car. After getting his sister in the car, you try to get to the bottom of what's bothering him. For this exercise, I'll be the toddler and I'd like, let's see, I'd like Davidson to try and diagnose the problem. Davidson, you ready? All right, and...go.
Davidson: So a spider bit you?
Toddler: No. A spider scared me.
Davidson: A spider scared you? Where?
Toddler: On my finger.
Davidson: A spider scared you on your finger?
Toddler: Yes. Miss Frances threw it.
Davidson: Miss Frances threw what?
Toddler: A black spider. Threw it on the ground.
Davidson: Wait. Miss Frances threw a spider on the ground and that scared you?
Toddler: Yes. Ryan drew it.
Davidson: Drew what?
Toddler: A spider
Davidson: Ryan drew a spider? Where? In class?
Toddler: On my eye.
Davidson: I got nothing.
As you can see, the "spider" that bit the child, either didn't exist at all, or not only bit him, but also scared him, got thrown on the ground, and was drawn on his eye. This then expands the diagnosis from a simple spider bite to possible retinal scratching and/or detachment, pyschological trauma manifesting in arachnaphobic tendencies and possible blunt trauma to the spider. In this case, it was determined, upon getting home, that the child had a fever. He was given a bath and put to bed. Upon waking the next morning he was fine.
All right, next case, same child, next day. Child, who normally sleeps very soundly wakes up crying. Child request dinosaur from downstairs. Possible diagnoses people? Anyone? Come on folks, this isn't hard. OK, it's Friday, so I'll let you slide. Possible diagnoses include, but are not limited to: nightmares, full bladder/bowels, empty bladder/bowels, hunger, a stiff wind, it being Tuesday, ear ache, stomach ache, foot ache, male pattern baldness, pain, suffering, lost wages. Treatment? Harris?
Harris: Go downstairs and get the dinosaur?
Jesus, Harris, don't ever have kids. No, remember, it's late and you're tired. Franklin?
Franklin: Tell him he's not going downstairs to get his goddamned dinosaur, that it's late and that he needs to go to sleep.
Bingo. Franklin, you just won Father of the Year. One hour later, child again cries for dinosaur. This time he complains of ear pain. Diagnoses? Mr. Chung?
Chung: Um, tennis elbow?
Normally I'd say yes. Had you asked him if his ear hurt, in an attempt to figure out the source of irritation, and he answered yes, tennis elbow would be a viable possibility. However given that this statement was unsolicited, we can assume that his ear pain is genunine. A subsequent trip to the doctor would prove an ear infection was to blame.
OK, next morning, child is again crying. Again, let's roleplay. Andrews you're up.
Toddler: Waaah.
Andrews: Does your ear hurt?
Toddler: Yes.
Andrews: Does anything else hurt?
Toddler: My face.
Andrews: Your face hurts?
Toddler: Yes.
Andrews: What happened to your face?
Toddler: Wall hit it.
Andrews: The wall hit it?
Toddler: Yes.
Andrews: You've been in bed all night? How could the wall have hit your face?
Toddler: Waaah.
OK, Andrews, what's the diagnoses? What? Misplaced facial pain as a result of the ear infection? Close, but not quite right. The correct answer is "spider bite".
Friday, February 17, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
OK, one thing I should point out is that economics is really fucking hard. I thought that chemistry was hard, but economics makes chemistry look like making balloon animals. Then again, I don't know how to make balloon animals either, so perhaps I'm unqualified to make statements comparing those three sciences. Let's just say that they all represent a near infinite level of difficulty, and leave it at that.
So, when I decided that this week's science post would be about bubbles, particularly housing bubbles, I forgot that housing bubbles means economics, which is the section of The Economist that I skip every week. Yes, I realize the irony inherent in my skipping the economics section of The Economist. I'm not particularly proud of my skipping, but I'm taking it one article at a time. That being said, I can't guarantee that this post will be overwhelmingly educational, as I'm still learning myself and I may have to sacrifice providing a wealth of information for clarity. Don't get me wrong, it will still be educational, just not overwhelmingly so. It will be just the right amount of whelming.
Without further ado, here's the question of the week:
What is a housing bubble?
In economic terms, a bubble occurs when speculation in a particular commodity drives the price of said commodity up to unsustainable levels. In real life, bubbles are floating faerie houses made of moonbeams and pixie dust. Let's say you make a candy bar called the Fudgemeister. You go online and talk up Fudgemeister bars and somehow manage to convince the world that Fudgemeister bars are the greatest thing ever, so everyone goes out and starts buying Fudgemeister bars as they see them holding some future value. To capitalize on this success, you make limited edition Fudgemeister bars, and start printing a magazine called Fudgemeister Monthly. As a result, the price of Fudgemeister bars go up, which makes people talk about it more and worry more about them not being around, so they go out and buy more Fudgemeister bars and hoarding them in their basement to sell at a future date. Eventually someone realizes how fucking stupid they're being by thinking they can fund their retirement with candy, and they stop paying inflated prices for Fudgemeister bars. This sets off a panic, people start selling off their bars and soon you can't swing a dead cat without seeing a 3 for 1 sale on Fudgemeister bars at the local drug store. Those still holding massive quantities of bars see their fudgy worth go down the toilet, they come to your house and beat you about the head and neck with King Size Fudgemeisters. This then goes down in history as the Fudgemeister Bubble and the Great Candy Crash of '06.
Sound familiar? Well, it should. It happened with Tulips in the Netherlands in 1636, it happened with dot-com stocks in the US in 2000 and some would say it's happening with real estate, specifically houses, in the US and other countries as we speak. Bubbles are tricky things in that you don't know you're in one until after it pops and whatever you've been speculating on crashes. For this reason, we can't really say if we're in a housing bubble at the moment, although there are plenty of people on both sides to give their opinions.
A housing bubble is just like our Fudgemeister Bubble. People start overvaluing houses, which in turn fuels more overvaluing until the point where house prices reach unsustainable levels. Here's where it gets bad. Unlike in the Great Candy Crash, where speculators are left with a basement full of candy, and not much else to show for it, when a housing bubble bursts, people are left with negative equity on their mortgage. To place this in plainer terms, you owe more on your house than your house is worth. This is a bad thing.
As the economy sputtered along these past few years and the Federal Reserve continued to reduce interest rates, mortgage interest rates fell as a result, making it easier for people to borrow large amounts of cash for buying a house. Mortgage companies then "helped" people some more by offering interest only loans, or loans for 105% of the purchase price, to cover closing costs, and other incentives to get people buying houses. Armed with this cash, folks can now buy more house than they ever could before, only they're not necessarily buying more house, just a more expensive house.
House prices are traditionally set based on what houses in the same neighborhood, with the same features have sold for. Once one sells for a ridiculously high price, others have precedence to be sold for a ridiculously high price. Human nature also pays a part in this, as people don't want to sell their house for less than the next guy, especially if they can get much more than what their house is worth. On the other side, folks don't want to be outbid on a house, so they jack their offer up to match whatever they think the other buyers will be offering. Besides, their interest rate is so low, and they don't have to put any cash down, so why not? After all, in 2 years, the house will be worth double what they paid for it, so they can just refinance then.
You also have all the folks who see houses as an investment, either as a reaction to seeing gains in stocks wiped out after the dot-com crash, or as a reaction to seeing their neighbor make 50k on a house that they owned for only a year. Take a look at the various home and garden tv networks some time and count how many shows are built on the premise of fixing up a house for the purpose of selling it. I can tell you that the number is more than 2. These investments serve to push the prices of houses up and up and up and up to the point where they become overvalued.
How do we know they're overvalued? There are a number of factors, but the only one I somewhat understand is the ratio of house prices to rents. To quote The Economist, "...the price of a house should reflect the future benefits of ownership, either as rental income for an investor or the rent saved by an owner-occupier." In other words, if you're paying $600,000 for a house, you should either a) be able to rent that house for an amount that matches the montly mortgage amount or b) be able to pay a monthly mortgage that represents a savings over what you were paying in rent. For the most part, this ain't happening. Again, from The Economist, "America's ratio of prices to rents is 35% above its average level during 1975-2000". This points to overvaluation, because there is no financial savings to owning rather than renting. The housing investors are willing to accept this temporary loss, by renting our their investment property, for the hint of future profits, which is a sure sign that speculation is taking place.
There are counters to this argument, however I barely understand this argument, so forgive me if I don't get into what the counter is, but it has to do with the fact that lower interest rates makes it easier to buy a house, so it costs less than before to buy your McMansion, so it only makes sense that the price of houses is so much larger than rents. I've included opposing arguments in the reference section, so please don't take just my word for it.
I can tell you from personal experience that there are some crazy regional shenanigans going on, that, in my opinion, need to be fixed with some sort of market correction, lest we all plummet into economic despair. We bought our first house in Northern VA., in October of 1999. A little over 5 years later, in Feb of 05, we sold it for roughly 2.25 times what we paid for it. That's a pretty significant appreciation rate. Granted, we painted, added a deck and a fence, finished the basement and did some landscaping, but none of those additions can account for the rise in price. Part of the reason we decided to sell, was that we could no longer afford our own home. Don't get me wrong, we could make our mortgage payments, but if we were to buy our house, for the price we sold it for, our mortgage would have been through the roof, and beyond what we were comfortable paying. Not much of a big deal had we decided to stay put, but what if we decided we wanted something larger, or just something different? In the 5 years of ownership, the area got priced out of our income range. How first time home buyers, like us, could afford such ridiculous prices, is beyond me. See mortgages, 105%.
And the prices are ridiculous. I know what my house was worth, and I feel like I cheated the buyers out of a huge bundle of money because of where we priced it. But, human nature being what it is, had we priced it significantly lower, it would have been avoided because people would have wondered what was wrong with it.
Now, compare that experience with what we have in Atlanta, and you can see the argument for there being small, regional bubbles, rather than a large US wide bubble. Most houses here take several months to sell, and seem to be pretty much on point with what I would expect to pay. I know how much the seller of our current house paid, and I know how much we paid, and I don't feel like we got cheated. They were jerks, but that's another story for another time. Similarly, I don't expect to be able to sell my house for double in 5 years, which is just fine with me. Maybe new houses are ridiculously overpriced. I have no idea.
Regardless of whether or not it's a case of regional bubbles, or a large US bubble, a crash would be bad news for a bunch of people. All the housing investors would now have property that they won't make a profit on. All the people with negative equity will have a hard time getting additional equity should the roof on their $800,000 house spring a leak, because of the negative mortgage equity. If interest rates go up, all those with interest only ARM's will feel the pinch once they go from an interest only 5.25% mortgage to an interest + principal 8% mortgage on a house they could barely afford in the first place. The private sector jobs wrapped up in construction, real estate, mortgage brokering and other aspects of buying, selling and owning a house will dry up. People, who have to move will find themselves selling their house and not taking enough, if anything, from the sale to put towards the next house. Finally, people will spend less in general, because that new 42" plasma TV seems less important when you have a $650k mortgage on a house valued at $300k. The only people who would benefit, would be first time buyers who would be able to finally afford a house that's priced near or at the home's value, and who are willing to stay in it for 5 - 6 years, until the whole stupid process gets going again.
Me, I'm happy with having sold our house when we could benefit from this bubble, and am more than happy to hoard my cash for when it eventually bursts. Besides, I've got an inside tip on these candy bars. Trust me. I have seen the future, and it is Fudgemeisters.
Next week: No Idea, but Man Will It Be Good
Sources:
Wikipedia - Economic Bubble
Wikipedia - US Housing Bubble
Wikipedia - The Housing Bubble
Investor Elite.com - Housing Bubble
Economy.com - U.S. Bubble Trouble - Celia Chen
The Economist - In Come the Waves, June 16th, 2005 (requires subscription)
So, when I decided that this week's science post would be about bubbles, particularly housing bubbles, I forgot that housing bubbles means economics, which is the section of The Economist that I skip every week. Yes, I realize the irony inherent in my skipping the economics section of The Economist. I'm not particularly proud of my skipping, but I'm taking it one article at a time. That being said, I can't guarantee that this post will be overwhelmingly educational, as I'm still learning myself and I may have to sacrifice providing a wealth of information for clarity. Don't get me wrong, it will still be educational, just not overwhelmingly so. It will be just the right amount of whelming.
Without further ado, here's the question of the week:
What is a housing bubble?
In economic terms, a bubble occurs when speculation in a particular commodity drives the price of said commodity up to unsustainable levels. In real life, bubbles are floating faerie houses made of moonbeams and pixie dust. Let's say you make a candy bar called the Fudgemeister. You go online and talk up Fudgemeister bars and somehow manage to convince the world that Fudgemeister bars are the greatest thing ever, so everyone goes out and starts buying Fudgemeister bars as they see them holding some future value. To capitalize on this success, you make limited edition Fudgemeister bars, and start printing a magazine called Fudgemeister Monthly. As a result, the price of Fudgemeister bars go up, which makes people talk about it more and worry more about them not being around, so they go out and buy more Fudgemeister bars and hoarding them in their basement to sell at a future date. Eventually someone realizes how fucking stupid they're being by thinking they can fund their retirement with candy, and they stop paying inflated prices for Fudgemeister bars. This sets off a panic, people start selling off their bars and soon you can't swing a dead cat without seeing a 3 for 1 sale on Fudgemeister bars at the local drug store. Those still holding massive quantities of bars see their fudgy worth go down the toilet, they come to your house and beat you about the head and neck with King Size Fudgemeisters. This then goes down in history as the Fudgemeister Bubble and the Great Candy Crash of '06.
Sound familiar? Well, it should. It happened with Tulips in the Netherlands in 1636, it happened with dot-com stocks in the US in 2000 and some would say it's happening with real estate, specifically houses, in the US and other countries as we speak. Bubbles are tricky things in that you don't know you're in one until after it pops and whatever you've been speculating on crashes. For this reason, we can't really say if we're in a housing bubble at the moment, although there are plenty of people on both sides to give their opinions.
A housing bubble is just like our Fudgemeister Bubble. People start overvaluing houses, which in turn fuels more overvaluing until the point where house prices reach unsustainable levels. Here's where it gets bad. Unlike in the Great Candy Crash, where speculators are left with a basement full of candy, and not much else to show for it, when a housing bubble bursts, people are left with negative equity on their mortgage. To place this in plainer terms, you owe more on your house than your house is worth. This is a bad thing.
As the economy sputtered along these past few years and the Federal Reserve continued to reduce interest rates, mortgage interest rates fell as a result, making it easier for people to borrow large amounts of cash for buying a house. Mortgage companies then "helped" people some more by offering interest only loans, or loans for 105% of the purchase price, to cover closing costs, and other incentives to get people buying houses. Armed with this cash, folks can now buy more house than they ever could before, only they're not necessarily buying more house, just a more expensive house.
House prices are traditionally set based on what houses in the same neighborhood, with the same features have sold for. Once one sells for a ridiculously high price, others have precedence to be sold for a ridiculously high price. Human nature also pays a part in this, as people don't want to sell their house for less than the next guy, especially if they can get much more than what their house is worth. On the other side, folks don't want to be outbid on a house, so they jack their offer up to match whatever they think the other buyers will be offering. Besides, their interest rate is so low, and they don't have to put any cash down, so why not? After all, in 2 years, the house will be worth double what they paid for it, so they can just refinance then.
You also have all the folks who see houses as an investment, either as a reaction to seeing gains in stocks wiped out after the dot-com crash, or as a reaction to seeing their neighbor make 50k on a house that they owned for only a year. Take a look at the various home and garden tv networks some time and count how many shows are built on the premise of fixing up a house for the purpose of selling it. I can tell you that the number is more than 2. These investments serve to push the prices of houses up and up and up and up to the point where they become overvalued.
How do we know they're overvalued? There are a number of factors, but the only one I somewhat understand is the ratio of house prices to rents. To quote The Economist, "...the price of a house should reflect the future benefits of ownership, either as rental income for an investor or the rent saved by an owner-occupier." In other words, if you're paying $600,000 for a house, you should either a) be able to rent that house for an amount that matches the montly mortgage amount or b) be able to pay a monthly mortgage that represents a savings over what you were paying in rent. For the most part, this ain't happening. Again, from The Economist, "America's ratio of prices to rents is 35% above its average level during 1975-2000". This points to overvaluation, because there is no financial savings to owning rather than renting. The housing investors are willing to accept this temporary loss, by renting our their investment property, for the hint of future profits, which is a sure sign that speculation is taking place.
There are counters to this argument, however I barely understand this argument, so forgive me if I don't get into what the counter is, but it has to do with the fact that lower interest rates makes it easier to buy a house, so it costs less than before to buy your McMansion, so it only makes sense that the price of houses is so much larger than rents. I've included opposing arguments in the reference section, so please don't take just my word for it.
I can tell you from personal experience that there are some crazy regional shenanigans going on, that, in my opinion, need to be fixed with some sort of market correction, lest we all plummet into economic despair. We bought our first house in Northern VA., in October of 1999. A little over 5 years later, in Feb of 05, we sold it for roughly 2.25 times what we paid for it. That's a pretty significant appreciation rate. Granted, we painted, added a deck and a fence, finished the basement and did some landscaping, but none of those additions can account for the rise in price. Part of the reason we decided to sell, was that we could no longer afford our own home. Don't get me wrong, we could make our mortgage payments, but if we were to buy our house, for the price we sold it for, our mortgage would have been through the roof, and beyond what we were comfortable paying. Not much of a big deal had we decided to stay put, but what if we decided we wanted something larger, or just something different? In the 5 years of ownership, the area got priced out of our income range. How first time home buyers, like us, could afford such ridiculous prices, is beyond me. See mortgages, 105%.
And the prices are ridiculous. I know what my house was worth, and I feel like I cheated the buyers out of a huge bundle of money because of where we priced it. But, human nature being what it is, had we priced it significantly lower, it would have been avoided because people would have wondered what was wrong with it.
Now, compare that experience with what we have in Atlanta, and you can see the argument for there being small, regional bubbles, rather than a large US wide bubble. Most houses here take several months to sell, and seem to be pretty much on point with what I would expect to pay. I know how much the seller of our current house paid, and I know how much we paid, and I don't feel like we got cheated. They were jerks, but that's another story for another time. Similarly, I don't expect to be able to sell my house for double in 5 years, which is just fine with me. Maybe new houses are ridiculously overpriced. I have no idea.
Regardless of whether or not it's a case of regional bubbles, or a large US bubble, a crash would be bad news for a bunch of people. All the housing investors would now have property that they won't make a profit on. All the people with negative equity will have a hard time getting additional equity should the roof on their $800,000 house spring a leak, because of the negative mortgage equity. If interest rates go up, all those with interest only ARM's will feel the pinch once they go from an interest only 5.25% mortgage to an interest + principal 8% mortgage on a house they could barely afford in the first place. The private sector jobs wrapped up in construction, real estate, mortgage brokering and other aspects of buying, selling and owning a house will dry up. People, who have to move will find themselves selling their house and not taking enough, if anything, from the sale to put towards the next house. Finally, people will spend less in general, because that new 42" plasma TV seems less important when you have a $650k mortgage on a house valued at $300k. The only people who would benefit, would be first time buyers who would be able to finally afford a house that's priced near or at the home's value, and who are willing to stay in it for 5 - 6 years, until the whole stupid process gets going again.
Me, I'm happy with having sold our house when we could benefit from this bubble, and am more than happy to hoard my cash for when it eventually bursts. Besides, I've got an inside tip on these candy bars. Trust me. I have seen the future, and it is Fudgemeisters.
Next week: No Idea, but Man Will It Be Good
Sources:
Wikipedia - Economic Bubble
Wikipedia - US Housing Bubble
Wikipedia - The Housing Bubble
Investor Elite.com - Housing Bubble
Economy.com - U.S. Bubble Trouble - Celia Chen
The Economist - In Come the Waves, June 16th, 2005 (requires subscription)
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Follow Freeman!
I finished Half-Life 2 on the Xbox the other night and boy, did it suck. Half-Life 2, the game, didn't suck, but finishing Half-Life 2 did, and not in a "man this ending sucked" kind of way, but more of a "there's a gaping hole in my existance where this game and our special moments together used to be. What kind of cruel God would provide me with such a fantastic gaming experience and not make it last forever and ever and ever and ever until the galaxy collapsed upon itself?" kind of way. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for the original Half-Life, maybe I'm just generally irritated with the offerings on the 360, or maybe, just maybe, it's geniuinely a very good game and I'm just calling it like it is.
For some reason, despite it being 6 years since the original Half-Life came out and won every gaming award ever created, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize, the NBA Rookie of the Year award and the Blue Ribbon in the Ohio State Fair Pie Eating contest, developers seem to be unable to tell a coherent story in a shooter. I don't really know why. One would think that they could just play Half-Life and get some good ideas there, but maybe they're not allowed to. I can see some contentious design meetings if all everyone says is "make it like Half-Life", but still, at least try and take some good ideas away from the game.
What Half-Life did, and Half-Life 2 does, better than any shooter I've ever played, is place the player directly in the story. There are no cinematics to fill in the background details, no in-engine movies showing our hero running around and figuring things out. There is you, your eyes, your ears and your actions. The entire story unfolds around you, and because of you, as you play the game. Now, as a result, that leaves some details less fleshed out than others, but when, in life, do we ever have all of the answers? Exactly. I can see there being the temptation to want to show external events through cut scenes or other form of exposition, but by sticking to the idea that if you don't see it or hear about it, you don't know about it, it keeps the player firmly entrenched in the story.
Of course, if the story sucks, this ain't such a good thing, but in this case, the story is quite good. At the end of the original Half-Life, you were given a choice by the mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man rip-off guy to either go with him and do things, or, um, you know, don't. It's been 6 years since I played the original, so the ending is a little fuzzy. Half-Life 2 starts up with your choice having been made for you. You're on a train, heading to the very oppressive City 17 which, like all of the other cities of Earth, have been taken over by the Combine, a race of aliens who have only our best interests at heart, as long as you count total subjugation as one of our best interests. In these situations, what's a theoretical physicist to do but jump in his enviromental suit, pick up some firearms and free humanity from alien oppression? As interesting as it would be to watch Feeman work on some physics theorems, or come up with a list for the grocery store, making with the bang-bang is the more fun, if somewhat less realistic choice.
Once you start shooting, you'll be doing a ton of it, and the weapons and enemies provide a nice mix of things to shoot and things to shoot at. The balance of weapons is nice, and while some have a very specific purpose, there's plenty of variety with the others for you to pick a favorite and stick with it. Not content to stick with the usual set of weaponry, Valve added the gravity gun, which allows you to pick up and shoot objects such as paint cans, tables, explosive barrels, massive saw blades, etc. You'll get over the strangeness of seeing explosive barrels all over the place once you pick one up and chuck it into a group of Combine soldiers. Just be sure to actually throw the barrel, rather than use it for cover, as they react rather violently to bullets.
The levels are equally as varied with scary, zombie filled levels, levels piloting air boats and dune buggys, run and gun levels while leading a squad of resistance soldiers and sneak into the enemy base levels. On that last point, every shooter has a point in the game where our plucky hero has to infiltrate the enemy base. Usually the game camera swoops over the fortress, lingering on guards walking across catwalks and sentry points, until it ultimately flies back to our hero who is now supposed to be scared. Or something. I can assure you, that when you make it into the heart of the Combine, the subsequent journey will show you that the enormity of the situation you now face makes the previous time fighting the Combine look like a trip to the Gas & Sip. As I sat there, watching the enemy around me, I found myself thinking "how the hell am I supposed to fight them?"
It's not all perfect, though, primarily because this is a port of a PC game, rather than something created natively for the platform. There are some choppy moments, especially when levels first load, and when battles get particularly heated. This can be annoying, as the reason the battle is so heated is that there are like 9 hojillion people all trying to kill you at the same time, and choppy framerates makes it hard to aim. The level load times are also on the long side, which, based on how the game is split up, can be distracting. On a high-end PC, I'm sure the levels zip along as they load. On the Xbox, well, just pack a lunch and you'll be fine. I can tell you that by the end of the game, either the level loading got better, be it faster or less frequent, or I just got used to it, because it didn't bother me any more.
If you're planning on playing this on the 360, because you sold your Xbox, well, see if you can pick an Oldbox on the cheap, because the emulation sucks. Level load times are significantly longer and there's some very annoying audio and video stuttering, and this was just as I opened up the main menu. After seeing these problems, I didn't even bother any more, but I have read of others having the same problems as the game progressed. There also isn't any multiplayer, however I don't consider that a flaw, as if I'm going to be filled with bullets, I'd like the story to be something other than "Man meets 14 year old. 14 year old shoots man several times. Man quits in digust." The game clocks in around 15 hours, so even if you pay the full 50 that the game dropped for, it's more than worth it to pay what amounts to 3 bucks an hour for an experience of this caliber. Of late, you can get the game for less than 50, so the fun per hour rate climbs through the very-high-o-sphere. The ending can be considered by some as being somewhat anti-climactic, but I enjoyed it, and it sets things up for a Half-Life 3, so bully for them.
It's a shame that this game came out in November of '05 when no one was buying Xbox games in anticipation of the unmitigated joy that would be the 360 experience. Now that said experience has proven to be um, mitigated, there are a lot of people who won't play this game either because a) they sold their Xbox (see emulation, sucky) or b) they didn't know that it dropped and won't think to look for it. Maybe they already played it on the PC, but somehow I doubt that. The only PC game my fellow console aficianodos play is World of Warcraft, and good luck getting them off of that. Your decision making process when it comes to this game, can be summed up in a flow chart of three boxes. Box 1: Do I like shooters? Box 2: Am I alive? Box 3: Am I trapped under something heavy? Answering yes, yes, no is the key to joyous rapture. Anything else provides you with a set of problems I am unable to help you with at this juncture.
For some reason, despite it being 6 years since the original Half-Life came out and won every gaming award ever created, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize, the NBA Rookie of the Year award and the Blue Ribbon in the Ohio State Fair Pie Eating contest, developers seem to be unable to tell a coherent story in a shooter. I don't really know why. One would think that they could just play Half-Life and get some good ideas there, but maybe they're not allowed to. I can see some contentious design meetings if all everyone says is "make it like Half-Life", but still, at least try and take some good ideas away from the game.
What Half-Life did, and Half-Life 2 does, better than any shooter I've ever played, is place the player directly in the story. There are no cinematics to fill in the background details, no in-engine movies showing our hero running around and figuring things out. There is you, your eyes, your ears and your actions. The entire story unfolds around you, and because of you, as you play the game. Now, as a result, that leaves some details less fleshed out than others, but when, in life, do we ever have all of the answers? Exactly. I can see there being the temptation to want to show external events through cut scenes or other form of exposition, but by sticking to the idea that if you don't see it or hear about it, you don't know about it, it keeps the player firmly entrenched in the story.
Of course, if the story sucks, this ain't such a good thing, but in this case, the story is quite good. At the end of the original Half-Life, you were given a choice by the mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man rip-off guy to either go with him and do things, or, um, you know, don't. It's been 6 years since I played the original, so the ending is a little fuzzy. Half-Life 2 starts up with your choice having been made for you. You're on a train, heading to the very oppressive City 17 which, like all of the other cities of Earth, have been taken over by the Combine, a race of aliens who have only our best interests at heart, as long as you count total subjugation as one of our best interests. In these situations, what's a theoretical physicist to do but jump in his enviromental suit, pick up some firearms and free humanity from alien oppression? As interesting as it would be to watch Feeman work on some physics theorems, or come up with a list for the grocery store, making with the bang-bang is the more fun, if somewhat less realistic choice.
Once you start shooting, you'll be doing a ton of it, and the weapons and enemies provide a nice mix of things to shoot and things to shoot at. The balance of weapons is nice, and while some have a very specific purpose, there's plenty of variety with the others for you to pick a favorite and stick with it. Not content to stick with the usual set of weaponry, Valve added the gravity gun, which allows you to pick up and shoot objects such as paint cans, tables, explosive barrels, massive saw blades, etc. You'll get over the strangeness of seeing explosive barrels all over the place once you pick one up and chuck it into a group of Combine soldiers. Just be sure to actually throw the barrel, rather than use it for cover, as they react rather violently to bullets.
The levels are equally as varied with scary, zombie filled levels, levels piloting air boats and dune buggys, run and gun levels while leading a squad of resistance soldiers and sneak into the enemy base levels. On that last point, every shooter has a point in the game where our plucky hero has to infiltrate the enemy base. Usually the game camera swoops over the fortress, lingering on guards walking across catwalks and sentry points, until it ultimately flies back to our hero who is now supposed to be scared. Or something. I can assure you, that when you make it into the heart of the Combine, the subsequent journey will show you that the enormity of the situation you now face makes the previous time fighting the Combine look like a trip to the Gas & Sip. As I sat there, watching the enemy around me, I found myself thinking "how the hell am I supposed to fight them?"
It's not all perfect, though, primarily because this is a port of a PC game, rather than something created natively for the platform. There are some choppy moments, especially when levels first load, and when battles get particularly heated. This can be annoying, as the reason the battle is so heated is that there are like 9 hojillion people all trying to kill you at the same time, and choppy framerates makes it hard to aim. The level load times are also on the long side, which, based on how the game is split up, can be distracting. On a high-end PC, I'm sure the levels zip along as they load. On the Xbox, well, just pack a lunch and you'll be fine. I can tell you that by the end of the game, either the level loading got better, be it faster or less frequent, or I just got used to it, because it didn't bother me any more.
If you're planning on playing this on the 360, because you sold your Xbox, well, see if you can pick an Oldbox on the cheap, because the emulation sucks. Level load times are significantly longer and there's some very annoying audio and video stuttering, and this was just as I opened up the main menu. After seeing these problems, I didn't even bother any more, but I have read of others having the same problems as the game progressed. There also isn't any multiplayer, however I don't consider that a flaw, as if I'm going to be filled with bullets, I'd like the story to be something other than "Man meets 14 year old. 14 year old shoots man several times. Man quits in digust." The game clocks in around 15 hours, so even if you pay the full 50 that the game dropped for, it's more than worth it to pay what amounts to 3 bucks an hour for an experience of this caliber. Of late, you can get the game for less than 50, so the fun per hour rate climbs through the very-high-o-sphere. The ending can be considered by some as being somewhat anti-climactic, but I enjoyed it, and it sets things up for a Half-Life 3, so bully for them.
It's a shame that this game came out in November of '05 when no one was buying Xbox games in anticipation of the unmitigated joy that would be the 360 experience. Now that said experience has proven to be um, mitigated, there are a lot of people who won't play this game either because a) they sold their Xbox (see emulation, sucky) or b) they didn't know that it dropped and won't think to look for it. Maybe they already played it on the PC, but somehow I doubt that. The only PC game my fellow console aficianodos play is World of Warcraft, and good luck getting them off of that. Your decision making process when it comes to this game, can be summed up in a flow chart of three boxes. Box 1: Do I like shooters? Box 2: Am I alive? Box 3: Am I trapped under something heavy? Answering yes, yes, no is the key to joyous rapture. Anything else provides you with a set of problems I am unable to help you with at this juncture.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Seize Your Density
So I got this brochure in the mail the other day, about becoming a Jedi and after reading it and successfully drawing the turtle, I was like "hell yes". I headed out to their Secret Jedi Training Facility and I've got two words for you: let down. I was mainly interested in it for the lightsaber and the mind tricks. It'd be cool to roll up to the drive-through window and they'd be all like "That's 4.78 sir" and I'm all like "I already paid for these sausage biscuits" and they're all like "You already paid for these sausage biscuits" and BAM, free sausage biscuits. If it didn't work, I'd bust out the saber and then see if they can collect money when I lop their hand off. I thought it'd be all high style living and prestige and shit. I could live with the robes, because they seem comfortable enough and I pretty much live in my bathrobe anyway so there's no big stretch there.
Man was I wrong. First of all, I get there and meet this Skywalker dude and he's all going on about serving the universe and serving the Force and not being angry and blah, blah, blah. I drifted off a couple of times but was awake long enough to learn that being a Jedi ain't got nothing to do with stealing sausage biscuits. I tried to hide those thoughts from him but he's a snoopy motherfucker and I'm sure he caught some thoughts he wasn't too pleased with because after a while he looked at me like he caught me whacking off to pictures of goats or something. Second of all, they don't get paid! Can you believe that? They're all flying around, policing the galaxy, getting their arms lopped off fighting whatever threat just rolled up in the galaxy and they don't get paid. Fuck. That. I'm all about gettin' mine and I ain't about to put myself in a situation where I can lose a thumb and not have some Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance or at least a Long Term Disability plan. Hell to the no. How the hell they expect me to keep putting gas in the X-Wing without a salary is anyone's guess.
Thankfully it wasn't a total bust. Usually making a lightsaber is this big contemplative act where you meditate on the Force and go into a trance for like 6 days or some shit and when you're done you have a completed lightsaber, but sometimes that shit ain't practical. When you're being hunted by Trandoshan bounty hunters they're not going to take a week off just so that you can remake your lightsaber. Trust me, I've asked. For those times, when you really need something quickly, the Jedi make these Build Your Own Lightsaber kits. When I was being escorted out of the training facility, I saw a bunch of the kits in a supply closet. I used a Jedi "mind trick" to brain my guide with a coat stand and grabbed one on my way out. Ossus is a hell of a long ways away to leave completely empty handed.
So, here's the kit and as you can see, you've got a lot of options to play with. They give you instructions on how to make sabers that look like Anakin Skywalker's, Darth Vader's, Luke Skywalker's and Obi-Wan Kenobi's. Not sure about the idea behind that. I mean, they're recognizeable names but Anakin? Dead. Darth? Dead. Obi-Wan? Dead. They're like 1 - 4 on living Jedi, so excuse me if I choose a style that won't leave me all twisted by the dark side and some shit. In typical Jedi fashion, it doesn't come with batteries which is oh-so helpful when you're trying to create your saber in the heat of battle. Oh excuse me Vong warrior, but can you put down your amphistaff long enough so that I can rustle up some C-cells? No? Oh, ok.
Here you see the saber in the initial stages of construction. Note the green crystal. Each saber uses different crystals to regulate the length of the blade, power, color, etc. I meditated on the Force while watching Veronica Mars to figure out what color crystal to pick and the Force was all like "Green, green, green". I was cool with that. Green is all about life and the Force can't exist without life so that's cool. Plus, green is all about cash money and you know I'm down wit gettin' paid. Holla! Each crystal also has a distinct resonance too, which helps to distinguish your saber. Funny story. Every one used to make fun of Windu because he had that prissy purple blade, but he tweaked his crystal so that when his saber was on, instead of humming, it kept saying "Piiiiimmmmmp. Piiiiimmmmmp." That dude was hilarious. Anyways, I put the green crystal in and fired up the saber to do some preliminary testing and it sounded like someone was operating a chainsaw in a metal garbage can. Nice job, Force. I can't be steppin to some Storm Troopers sounding like I'm wielding a weed-whacker. Fuck that noise. After that, I switched to blue.
Here you can see the basic design. The emitter was a little bigger than I had hoped for, but it's not like this is something I can conceal anyways, and besides, I'd rather people see it and think I'm a Jedi so that they just do what I want them to do out of fear. The kit comes with extra emitters and crystals if you want to go double-bladed, but don't even bother. Oh, sure it looks cool and shit, but what you need to remember is that these blades don't have any weight to them, so you have to be able to see the blade to know where it's going. It's hard to see two blades at once. Everyone who makes their first saber wants to be all badass and go the double bladed route, but after their first practice session they're all in bacta tanks waiting for the medical droids to grow them some new feet. Not this playa. Besides, those double-bladed sabers eat up batteries like crazy and that's a discussion we've already had.
The almost finished product. All that's left is some power level tweaking and rust protection. As you can see, I have two power switches, because I thought it'd give me an advantage when dueling to be able to power down the saber from different grips when doing things like feints and parrys. It really throws someone off when they expect to clash blades but your blade isn't there. Just make sure that your arm isn't there instead. That red switch at the base of the hilt is a little something extra I cooked up for those dueling moments when you're all locked in combat, staring into the eyes of your hated enemy, his face inches from your's. I bought this huge batch of Corellian hot peppers, boiled them down and built a small atomizer into the hilt. If I thumb the red button it sends out a blast of pepper spray. Unfortunately I didn't take into account the spray direction when I first tested it and managed to get a blast right in the ol' peepers. They swelled up something awful. I was going to go to the hospital but if I had told them I got hit with pepper spray, they would think I was a rapist, and if I told them that it was when I was building my lightsaber, they would think I was a mental patient. I stayed in that weekend. I had originally planned on making it an electro-shock thing that would send a charge down the blade to my opponent's hilt, but surprisingly enough, those energy blades don't conduct electricity all that well. After I came to, I came up with the pepper spray idea.
Here's the final assembly. It turned out pretty much how I wanted it to, but again, the hilt is a bit bigger than I had hoped. I figure when people see it, they'll just think that I'm a tricked out thug who ain't afraid to bust out the big blade. When people see you coming with a lightsaber, they pretty much make up their minds on the spot, so I don't think that having a bigger hilt is going to make much of a difference. The plastic blade you see is a test harnass they give you so that when you're building the blade, you don't mess up and send out a 20 ft energy blade and cut a hole through your parent's basement in the process. The blade itself doesn't photograph well, but trust me, it's there in all of its blue, blazing glory. I haven't had much of a chance to use it since building it, as things are pretty calm around here, although I did chase some kids off of my lawn with it. They were all throwing their ball on my grass and shit, but once they heard the snap-hiss of the blade coming out, and saw me slice that ball in two, they hightailed it on out of there. I called the police to register my services as a Jedi (it's not like they're going to check my membership card or anything) but they didn't seem too interested in knowing I was around. The saber does a pretty good job trimming hedges, so at least it's not a total waste. Next time I'm out, I'm going to see if I can buy one of those Build Your Own Force Pike Kits. Those Crimson Guard dudes are the shit.
Man was I wrong. First of all, I get there and meet this Skywalker dude and he's all going on about serving the universe and serving the Force and not being angry and blah, blah, blah. I drifted off a couple of times but was awake long enough to learn that being a Jedi ain't got nothing to do with stealing sausage biscuits. I tried to hide those thoughts from him but he's a snoopy motherfucker and I'm sure he caught some thoughts he wasn't too pleased with because after a while he looked at me like he caught me whacking off to pictures of goats or something. Second of all, they don't get paid! Can you believe that? They're all flying around, policing the galaxy, getting their arms lopped off fighting whatever threat just rolled up in the galaxy and they don't get paid. Fuck. That. I'm all about gettin' mine and I ain't about to put myself in a situation where I can lose a thumb and not have some Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance or at least a Long Term Disability plan. Hell to the no. How the hell they expect me to keep putting gas in the X-Wing without a salary is anyone's guess.
Thankfully it wasn't a total bust. Usually making a lightsaber is this big contemplative act where you meditate on the Force and go into a trance for like 6 days or some shit and when you're done you have a completed lightsaber, but sometimes that shit ain't practical. When you're being hunted by Trandoshan bounty hunters they're not going to take a week off just so that you can remake your lightsaber. Trust me, I've asked. For those times, when you really need something quickly, the Jedi make these Build Your Own Lightsaber kits. When I was being escorted out of the training facility, I saw a bunch of the kits in a supply closet. I used a Jedi "mind trick" to brain my guide with a coat stand and grabbed one on my way out. Ossus is a hell of a long ways away to leave completely empty handed.
So, here's the kit and as you can see, you've got a lot of options to play with. They give you instructions on how to make sabers that look like Anakin Skywalker's, Darth Vader's, Luke Skywalker's and Obi-Wan Kenobi's. Not sure about the idea behind that. I mean, they're recognizeable names but Anakin? Dead. Darth? Dead. Obi-Wan? Dead. They're like 1 - 4 on living Jedi, so excuse me if I choose a style that won't leave me all twisted by the dark side and some shit. In typical Jedi fashion, it doesn't come with batteries which is oh-so helpful when you're trying to create your saber in the heat of battle. Oh excuse me Vong warrior, but can you put down your amphistaff long enough so that I can rustle up some C-cells? No? Oh, ok.
Here you see the saber in the initial stages of construction. Note the green crystal. Each saber uses different crystals to regulate the length of the blade, power, color, etc. I meditated on the Force while watching Veronica Mars to figure out what color crystal to pick and the Force was all like "Green, green, green". I was cool with that. Green is all about life and the Force can't exist without life so that's cool. Plus, green is all about cash money and you know I'm down wit gettin' paid. Holla! Each crystal also has a distinct resonance too, which helps to distinguish your saber. Funny story. Every one used to make fun of Windu because he had that prissy purple blade, but he tweaked his crystal so that when his saber was on, instead of humming, it kept saying "Piiiiimmmmmp. Piiiiimmmmmp." That dude was hilarious. Anyways, I put the green crystal in and fired up the saber to do some preliminary testing and it sounded like someone was operating a chainsaw in a metal garbage can. Nice job, Force. I can't be steppin to some Storm Troopers sounding like I'm wielding a weed-whacker. Fuck that noise. After that, I switched to blue.
Here you can see the basic design. The emitter was a little bigger than I had hoped for, but it's not like this is something I can conceal anyways, and besides, I'd rather people see it and think I'm a Jedi so that they just do what I want them to do out of fear. The kit comes with extra emitters and crystals if you want to go double-bladed, but don't even bother. Oh, sure it looks cool and shit, but what you need to remember is that these blades don't have any weight to them, so you have to be able to see the blade to know where it's going. It's hard to see two blades at once. Everyone who makes their first saber wants to be all badass and go the double bladed route, but after their first practice session they're all in bacta tanks waiting for the medical droids to grow them some new feet. Not this playa. Besides, those double-bladed sabers eat up batteries like crazy and that's a discussion we've already had.
The almost finished product. All that's left is some power level tweaking and rust protection. As you can see, I have two power switches, because I thought it'd give me an advantage when dueling to be able to power down the saber from different grips when doing things like feints and parrys. It really throws someone off when they expect to clash blades but your blade isn't there. Just make sure that your arm isn't there instead. That red switch at the base of the hilt is a little something extra I cooked up for those dueling moments when you're all locked in combat, staring into the eyes of your hated enemy, his face inches from your's. I bought this huge batch of Corellian hot peppers, boiled them down and built a small atomizer into the hilt. If I thumb the red button it sends out a blast of pepper spray. Unfortunately I didn't take into account the spray direction when I first tested it and managed to get a blast right in the ol' peepers. They swelled up something awful. I was going to go to the hospital but if I had told them I got hit with pepper spray, they would think I was a rapist, and if I told them that it was when I was building my lightsaber, they would think I was a mental patient. I stayed in that weekend. I had originally planned on making it an electro-shock thing that would send a charge down the blade to my opponent's hilt, but surprisingly enough, those energy blades don't conduct electricity all that well. After I came to, I came up with the pepper spray idea.
Here's the final assembly. It turned out pretty much how I wanted it to, but again, the hilt is a bit bigger than I had hoped. I figure when people see it, they'll just think that I'm a tricked out thug who ain't afraid to bust out the big blade. When people see you coming with a lightsaber, they pretty much make up their minds on the spot, so I don't think that having a bigger hilt is going to make much of a difference. The plastic blade you see is a test harnass they give you so that when you're building the blade, you don't mess up and send out a 20 ft energy blade and cut a hole through your parent's basement in the process. The blade itself doesn't photograph well, but trust me, it's there in all of its blue, blazing glory. I haven't had much of a chance to use it since building it, as things are pretty calm around here, although I did chase some kids off of my lawn with it. They were all throwing their ball on my grass and shit, but once they heard the snap-hiss of the blade coming out, and saw me slice that ball in two, they hightailed it on out of there. I called the police to register my services as a Jedi (it's not like they're going to check my membership card or anything) but they didn't seem too interested in knowing I was around. The saber does a pretty good job trimming hedges, so at least it's not a total waste. Next time I'm out, I'm going to see if I can buy one of those Build Your Own Force Pike Kits. Those Crimson Guard dudes are the shit.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
No Science Post Today
Sorry kids, but a cold has been knocking me around to the point where I am unable to communicate effectively. In my usual post's stead, I refer you to the fine folks at The Straight Dope. Those fuckers know everything.
Monday, February 06, 2006
And Their Cousins, the Baco-Gobots
Today's gaming post isn't about a game, it's about a book, "Attack of the Bacon Robots" in particular by the fine fellows over at Penny Arcade. Seeing how this book would be of interest to pretty much only gamers, I figured it was OK to post about on this, the hallowed Day of Gaming Posts.
The book covers the first 2 years of Penny Arcade strips, complete with commentary on each strip from Tycho. Note that these aren't the posts you're used to getting with the strips now, but thoughts on the strips themselves, provided they can remember what was going on when they created them. Most of the time they can remember, but when they can't, the commentary is pretty damn funny, and honest too. There are several strips where you can tell they're thinking "What the hell were we doing here", primarily because the commentary is something like "We don't know what the hell we were doing here". The majority of strips with unknown origins seem to center around feuds with other sites, an interesting point when you consider that, at the time, I'm sure that the feud was a big deal. Most of those sites aren't even around any more which should give you some perspective the next time you get in a flame war with HamsterLove.com.
The art isn't anything spectacular, said by the guy who's entire artistical talents lie in the ability to draw cartoon alligators and dinosaurs recognizeable only to a 3 year old who has seen neither. In the context of the Gabe's current work, it's impressive to see how his art has evolved, and the characters along with them. The strips towards the end of the book have a very odd thick black line outlining the major characters which, for some reason, reminds me of ShrinyDinks. That being said, a set of Penny Arcade ShrinkyDinks would make for a most awesome mobile. The writing is what we've come to expect, with some laugh out loud strips and some strips that tried just a wee bit too hard.
The best part of the book is how it acts as a walk down memory lane of video gaming in all of it's myriad forms. The strips cover events from 1999 - 2000, most of which I had forgotten about completely. I had just gotten into PC gaming in earnest only a year or so before that, so much of what they're talking about, I remember reading about. All of the console material is lost on me as I didn't start gaming on consoles until the Cube came out, but sadly most of what they're making fun of in regards to the consoles still applies today, so I wasn't completely confused.
It's amazing to me to be able to look back on how gaming was just 5-6 years ago and see how quickly things have moved along. 6 years ago, you didn't actually need a 3D accelerator card. Today that shit comes standard on the motherboard. I remember buying my first 3d card (a 3dfx card I'm sure), installing it, booting it up, playing Wing Commander Prophecy and not noticing one goddamned lick of difference. Glide my ass. Fast forward a year or so and I'm trying to convince my wife that I have to buy a new card because all of the new games coming out are requring it and all she remembers is me complaining that nothing looked any different with the card. That was a painful discussion. It's hard to insert the words "need" into a conversation about my desire to shoot down large, bipedal robots.
Back then I eagerly awaited the PC Gamer magazine, resplendent with demos so that I could see what my next purchase would be. The idea of a console curdled my stomach. Oh how things have changed. Now I have 4 consoles at home, a movie theater to play two of them on and the only PC game I've played in years sits on my laptop, untouched since I bought my DS. You can thank 3d cards for that, in part. After a while, one gets tired of searching out new drivers every time the shooter du jour drops. You can also thank my wife because it was her idea to finish the basement, complete with widescreen TV. And she bought me my GameCube. I blame her.
Getting back to the book, if you're not a fan of Penny Arcade, or aren't a gamer, I don't see this book being your cup of tea. If, on the other hand, you enjoy the strip, or enjoy the hobby and want to read about it in an interesting way, I'd say you can't go wrong by picking it up. Violence and profanity abound, so keep that in mind when picking it up for Gramma, unless Gramma is fucking metal.
The book covers the first 2 years of Penny Arcade strips, complete with commentary on each strip from Tycho. Note that these aren't the posts you're used to getting with the strips now, but thoughts on the strips themselves, provided they can remember what was going on when they created them. Most of the time they can remember, but when they can't, the commentary is pretty damn funny, and honest too. There are several strips where you can tell they're thinking "What the hell were we doing here", primarily because the commentary is something like "We don't know what the hell we were doing here". The majority of strips with unknown origins seem to center around feuds with other sites, an interesting point when you consider that, at the time, I'm sure that the feud was a big deal. Most of those sites aren't even around any more which should give you some perspective the next time you get in a flame war with HamsterLove.com.
The art isn't anything spectacular, said by the guy who's entire artistical talents lie in the ability to draw cartoon alligators and dinosaurs recognizeable only to a 3 year old who has seen neither. In the context of the Gabe's current work, it's impressive to see how his art has evolved, and the characters along with them. The strips towards the end of the book have a very odd thick black line outlining the major characters which, for some reason, reminds me of ShrinyDinks. That being said, a set of Penny Arcade ShrinkyDinks would make for a most awesome mobile. The writing is what we've come to expect, with some laugh out loud strips and some strips that tried just a wee bit too hard.
The best part of the book is how it acts as a walk down memory lane of video gaming in all of it's myriad forms. The strips cover events from 1999 - 2000, most of which I had forgotten about completely. I had just gotten into PC gaming in earnest only a year or so before that, so much of what they're talking about, I remember reading about. All of the console material is lost on me as I didn't start gaming on consoles until the Cube came out, but sadly most of what they're making fun of in regards to the consoles still applies today, so I wasn't completely confused.
It's amazing to me to be able to look back on how gaming was just 5-6 years ago and see how quickly things have moved along. 6 years ago, you didn't actually need a 3D accelerator card. Today that shit comes standard on the motherboard. I remember buying my first 3d card (a 3dfx card I'm sure), installing it, booting it up, playing Wing Commander Prophecy and not noticing one goddamned lick of difference. Glide my ass. Fast forward a year or so and I'm trying to convince my wife that I have to buy a new card because all of the new games coming out are requring it and all she remembers is me complaining that nothing looked any different with the card. That was a painful discussion. It's hard to insert the words "need" into a conversation about my desire to shoot down large, bipedal robots.
Back then I eagerly awaited the PC Gamer magazine, resplendent with demos so that I could see what my next purchase would be. The idea of a console curdled my stomach. Oh how things have changed. Now I have 4 consoles at home, a movie theater to play two of them on and the only PC game I've played in years sits on my laptop, untouched since I bought my DS. You can thank 3d cards for that, in part. After a while, one gets tired of searching out new drivers every time the shooter du jour drops. You can also thank my wife because it was her idea to finish the basement, complete with widescreen TV. And she bought me my GameCube. I blame her.
Getting back to the book, if you're not a fan of Penny Arcade, or aren't a gamer, I don't see this book being your cup of tea. If, on the other hand, you enjoy the strip, or enjoy the hobby and want to read about it in an interesting way, I'd say you can't go wrong by picking it up. Violence and profanity abound, so keep that in mind when picking it up for Gramma, unless Gramma is fucking metal.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Factory Closings
Ladies, take note. Time is running out for you to obtain my highly coveted genetic material. Oh sure, cheek swabs and skin cells will still be available for purchase should you want to go the cloning route, but should you want to try combining my DNA with your's to create a race of super-babies, the clock is ticking. Yes, we're talking about the big V, two small cuts with big, big sterile taste.
Before we talk more on this subject, I'd like to have a chat with just the fellas. Gentlemen, normally I wouldn't address this topic with you as I'm loathe to bring up anything regarding that place with others of the same gender, but I feel that I can't go forward without giving you proper warning, should you decide to go this route in the future. As part of the procedure scheduling process, I had to watch an instructional video. This video was created in 1974 and due to this fact, and the fact that the information in said video is unchanged since then, there's a very good chance that you may see the same instructional video. Once I saw the animations as how things work down there, I thought I had seen the worst that the video had to offer. Oh no. Not by a long shot. Not content with animating things, I was subjected to watching an actor, shave, ice and, oh God, gently wash his area. The horror. As a side note, I don't know how the medical community thinks that men go about washing but due to the emphasis on "gently" they must think that men furious attack dirt, pounding away with animal intensity in an effort to be clean. Not our actor though, he was very thorough. Very thorough. Be warned, here there be monsters. That is all.
The impending procedure fills me with mixed emotions. I love my children but I sure as hell don't want any more of them. While it is true that the amount of love one has to give is infinite, it is also true that the amount of patience one has is not. In fact, there are days that I think I have brung as much patience up from the well as there is ever going to be. Dividing up this patience amongst additional life forms would only prove disastrous.
However, at the same time, this procedure will hereby end any possibility of Linda and I ever having our own children. It's been a long time since either one of us thought that this would ever be possible, but the thing about unexplained infertility is that the lack of an explanation leaves the door open, for things to fix themselves, however slight the chances. Once I do this, our infertility will be forever pushed into the realm of completely explainable. Presentations, complete with pie charts and 3-D logos are not out of the question.
I think that part of the interest in having a child is the curiosity of seeing which traits, physical and emotional, your child gets from each parent. I have seen our respective junior high photos, and placing a child in that particular pre-pubescent House of Horrors could be construed as genetic assault, however I still would have liked to see the being that would have arisen from our genetic soup. On the other hand, I don't think there exists a pair of glasses large enough to correct that poor child's vision. Chemical compounds have yet to be discovered to allow for those lenses to be of a manageable size and weight.
I see this operation as not just an end to my child producing capabilities, but as an end to the infertility and all the pain, emotional turmoil and sleepness nights that it caused. For that reason, and despite my above misgivings, I can't think of it as anything but positive. Now that I have some time and distance from the situation, and can look back somewhat objectively, I can't help but think that the universe was trying to teach us a lesson. Thank the gods that the methods it chose were fairly benign, all things considered. The lesson, as I have learned it, is this: sometimes we make choices, sometimes choices are made for us, and the line between the two is smaller than you can imagine.
Before we talk more on this subject, I'd like to have a chat with just the fellas. Gentlemen, normally I wouldn't address this topic with you as I'm loathe to bring up anything regarding that place with others of the same gender, but I feel that I can't go forward without giving you proper warning, should you decide to go this route in the future. As part of the procedure scheduling process, I had to watch an instructional video. This video was created in 1974 and due to this fact, and the fact that the information in said video is unchanged since then, there's a very good chance that you may see the same instructional video. Once I saw the animations as how things work down there, I thought I had seen the worst that the video had to offer. Oh no. Not by a long shot. Not content with animating things, I was subjected to watching an actor, shave, ice and, oh God, gently wash his area. The horror. As a side note, I don't know how the medical community thinks that men go about washing but due to the emphasis on "gently" they must think that men furious attack dirt, pounding away with animal intensity in an effort to be clean. Not our actor though, he was very thorough. Very thorough. Be warned, here there be monsters. That is all.
The impending procedure fills me with mixed emotions. I love my children but I sure as hell don't want any more of them. While it is true that the amount of love one has to give is infinite, it is also true that the amount of patience one has is not. In fact, there are days that I think I have brung as much patience up from the well as there is ever going to be. Dividing up this patience amongst additional life forms would only prove disastrous.
However, at the same time, this procedure will hereby end any possibility of Linda and I ever having our own children. It's been a long time since either one of us thought that this would ever be possible, but the thing about unexplained infertility is that the lack of an explanation leaves the door open, for things to fix themselves, however slight the chances. Once I do this, our infertility will be forever pushed into the realm of completely explainable. Presentations, complete with pie charts and 3-D logos are not out of the question.
I think that part of the interest in having a child is the curiosity of seeing which traits, physical and emotional, your child gets from each parent. I have seen our respective junior high photos, and placing a child in that particular pre-pubescent House of Horrors could be construed as genetic assault, however I still would have liked to see the being that would have arisen from our genetic soup. On the other hand, I don't think there exists a pair of glasses large enough to correct that poor child's vision. Chemical compounds have yet to be discovered to allow for those lenses to be of a manageable size and weight.
I see this operation as not just an end to my child producing capabilities, but as an end to the infertility and all the pain, emotional turmoil and sleepness nights that it caused. For that reason, and despite my above misgivings, I can't think of it as anything but positive. Now that I have some time and distance from the situation, and can look back somewhat objectively, I can't help but think that the universe was trying to teach us a lesson. Thank the gods that the methods it chose were fairly benign, all things considered. The lesson, as I have learned it, is this: sometimes we make choices, sometimes choices are made for us, and the line between the two is smaller than you can imagine.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
On the Existence of Wooden Pots, Part 2
Greetings Science Squaddies! Nice to have you back. Before we get started, don't forget that if you have a question that's been burning in your soul like a flaming nugget of ignorance, please drop me an email at suburbanjoe -@- gmail . com and I'll do my best to answer the question. You can also leave questions in the comments if that suits your fancy.
Last week we talked about why you wouldn't use a wooden pan, discounting the obvious reason. Today we look at that obvious reason. When preparing this post, I asked my wife why wood burns but iron melts and here response was that iron is a "melty thing". I'm assuming that this means that wood is a "burny thing" but I didn't take the time to probe further. My curiosity only goes so far.
In truth, it's not that much more complicated than that. Iron is a pretty simple substance. All of the iron atoms arrange themselves in a nice crystalline pattern, metallic bonds keeping the atoms all nestled snug in their iron-y beds. Provide enough energy, from heat in our case, and these crystalline structures break down. The atoms still have enough of an attraction to each other to not go all over the place and iron turns into a liquid, or melts. Thus, iron is a melty thing.
Wood on the other hand, is anything but simple. Yes, it's a solid, as anyone who has ever been whacked with a 2 x 4 can attest to, but it's not a solid in the traditional, chemical sense of the word. Wood is made up of a number of things, but for our discussion, we'll talk about the big 3, water, cellulose and lignin. Water, is well, water. Not much to talk about there. Cellulose is a carbohydrate (carbon, hydrogen and oxygen whipped up into a creamy compound) that makes up the wood's cell walls. Lignin is a chemical compound that acts as a glue for the wood cells. There's also a whole bunch of other stuff in wood that we won't get into, mostly because I don't understand a blasted word of it.
Although not pertinent to our discussion, I'll offer this article up for your enjoyment. It's pretty interesting and talks about how the angle of the cellulose microfibers in the wood cell walls, relative to the orientation of the cells themselves offer various structural characteristics to trees. Cool stuff. You know, or not.
Anyways, back to burny things. So, you carve your pan out of wood, place it on the stove to get it warmed up, and 10 minutes later you're out on the front lawn with a fire department blanket on you while you watch your collection of Neil Sedaka cd's go up in flames. What happened?
When wood comes into contact with a large enough heat source, the first thing that happens is that the water inside the wood starts to evaporate. Once the wood gets to around 300 degrees, the cellulose starts to fall apart. As we mentioned before, cellulose is made up of Carbon, Hyrdogen and Oxygen. As two of these are gasses, we would expect some of the decomposing cellulose to turn into gas. And looky here, it does. That would be smoke. There's carbon in there too, so don't think that it doesn't get to fly around all willy-nilly, letting the other two elements have all the fun. Once the temp gets up to around 500 degrees, the compounds in the gases start to break apart and ignite, and we have fire. What doesn't burn travels up into the atmosphere or sticks to your chimney as creosote and then you have to have Dick Van Dyke come and clean your chimney lest you start a chimney fire and burn your house down. See cd collection, Neil Sedaka.
Now, this explains what happens when iron melts and when wood burns, but doesn't explain why wood burns and not melts and why iron melts and doesn't burn. Iron melts because you can apply enough energy to free up the atoms enough to let them slide around as they would need to, to be a liquid. Not so with wood. The structure of cellulose is such that the melting point is actually higher than the burning point, so you won't ever see it melt, it'll fall apart from the heat first. Blame it all on those pesky hydrogen bonds.
For the record, iron will burn, if in an environment of pure oxygen, but I don't see that being the case in your kitchen, so I think you'll be OK. Similarly unfounded are your fears of your iron skillet melting onto your stove, taking your eggs with it, as the melting point of cast iron is around 1200 degrees Celsius. However, don't let that dissuade you from doing some smelting in your home. It certainly didn't for this guy.
So, there you have it. Fear the stove no longer!
Next week: It's the Bubble Stupid!
Resources:
How Stuff Works - How Fire Works
Ask A Scientist - Wood Does Not Melt
Ask A Scientist - Chemical Makeup of Wood
Wikipedia - Cellulose
Wikipedia - Lignin
Nikon - MicroscopyU: Confocal Image Gallery - Wood Cells
Last week we talked about why you wouldn't use a wooden pan, discounting the obvious reason. Today we look at that obvious reason. When preparing this post, I asked my wife why wood burns but iron melts and here response was that iron is a "melty thing". I'm assuming that this means that wood is a "burny thing" but I didn't take the time to probe further. My curiosity only goes so far.
In truth, it's not that much more complicated than that. Iron is a pretty simple substance. All of the iron atoms arrange themselves in a nice crystalline pattern, metallic bonds keeping the atoms all nestled snug in their iron-y beds. Provide enough energy, from heat in our case, and these crystalline structures break down. The atoms still have enough of an attraction to each other to not go all over the place and iron turns into a liquid, or melts. Thus, iron is a melty thing.
Wood on the other hand, is anything but simple. Yes, it's a solid, as anyone who has ever been whacked with a 2 x 4 can attest to, but it's not a solid in the traditional, chemical sense of the word. Wood is made up of a number of things, but for our discussion, we'll talk about the big 3, water, cellulose and lignin. Water, is well, water. Not much to talk about there. Cellulose is a carbohydrate (carbon, hydrogen and oxygen whipped up into a creamy compound) that makes up the wood's cell walls. Lignin is a chemical compound that acts as a glue for the wood cells. There's also a whole bunch of other stuff in wood that we won't get into, mostly because I don't understand a blasted word of it.
Although not pertinent to our discussion, I'll offer this article up for your enjoyment. It's pretty interesting and talks about how the angle of the cellulose microfibers in the wood cell walls, relative to the orientation of the cells themselves offer various structural characteristics to trees. Cool stuff. You know, or not.
Anyways, back to burny things. So, you carve your pan out of wood, place it on the stove to get it warmed up, and 10 minutes later you're out on the front lawn with a fire department blanket on you while you watch your collection of Neil Sedaka cd's go up in flames. What happened?
When wood comes into contact with a large enough heat source, the first thing that happens is that the water inside the wood starts to evaporate. Once the wood gets to around 300 degrees, the cellulose starts to fall apart. As we mentioned before, cellulose is made up of Carbon, Hyrdogen and Oxygen. As two of these are gasses, we would expect some of the decomposing cellulose to turn into gas. And looky here, it does. That would be smoke. There's carbon in there too, so don't think that it doesn't get to fly around all willy-nilly, letting the other two elements have all the fun. Once the temp gets up to around 500 degrees, the compounds in the gases start to break apart and ignite, and we have fire. What doesn't burn travels up into the atmosphere or sticks to your chimney as creosote and then you have to have Dick Van Dyke come and clean your chimney lest you start a chimney fire and burn your house down. See cd collection, Neil Sedaka.
Now, this explains what happens when iron melts and when wood burns, but doesn't explain why wood burns and not melts and why iron melts and doesn't burn. Iron melts because you can apply enough energy to free up the atoms enough to let them slide around as they would need to, to be a liquid. Not so with wood. The structure of cellulose is such that the melting point is actually higher than the burning point, so you won't ever see it melt, it'll fall apart from the heat first. Blame it all on those pesky hydrogen bonds.
For the record, iron will burn, if in an environment of pure oxygen, but I don't see that being the case in your kitchen, so I think you'll be OK. Similarly unfounded are your fears of your iron skillet melting onto your stove, taking your eggs with it, as the melting point of cast iron is around 1200 degrees Celsius. However, don't let that dissuade you from doing some smelting in your home. It certainly didn't for this guy.
So, there you have it. Fear the stove no longer!
Next week: It's the Bubble Stupid!
Resources:
How Stuff Works - How Fire Works
Ask A Scientist - Wood Does Not Melt
Ask A Scientist - Chemical Makeup of Wood
Wikipedia - Cellulose
Wikipedia - Lignin
Nikon - MicroscopyU: Confocal Image Gallery - Wood Cells
Monday, January 30, 2006
Ape Escape
Diary of Jack Driscoll
(Editor's Note - Jack Driscoll is the unfortunate playright hired to accompany the cast and crew to Skull Island where they have a run-in with a rather large monkey. Their story is told in a recent art house movie called King Kong. Perhaps you've heard of it. Said story is also told in a game called Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie , a game that takes about as long to play as it does to speak the title. This diary is a recollection of Jack's encounters while on Skull Island, as we see in the game. How we got it, I don't know. I tend not to ask too many questions as it only gets me into trouble when I have to take the stand.)
Day 1
Well here we are, beautiful Skull Island. The trip was OK, and mostly uneventful except for the part where I got nailed with a rock in the rowboat. Ouch. Head trauma aside, I'm not so sure about these people I'm traveling with. I don't know how to explain it, but when they talk, their mouths don't match up. I'm not speaking in metaphors here, their mouths literally don't move to match the words they're saying. Weird. Maybe that rock hit me harder than I thought. Plus, and I'm sure this is just me being picky, but I thought we were supposed to be in a glorious new age. If that's the case, nobody told these people because they look like shit. I'm sure I look fine, but without a mirror, it's hard to tell. My hands look wonderful, that much I can tell you.
...
5 minutes on the island and we've already been attacked by giant crabs. My traveling companions weren't much help. I hope they understand that I'm a playwrite, not the great white hunter. If I have to kill everything on this trip, it's going to be a short trip.
...
Our pilot can't land, which doesn't bode well for the trip. He's been able to drop supply crates everywhere, which is good, I guess. Man, they sure brought a lot of guns along on this trip. I'm beginning to think that answering that ad in the newspaper wasn't such a good idea. Limitless earning potential my ass.
...
Managed to burn some brush away to clear a path. Apparantly, I'm the only person here who can wield a burning spear as the other 3 just stood around barking orders at me like I'm their lapdog. Then, once we moved along and all got attacked by giant millipedes it was all "Jack save me!", "Jack where are you?" "Jack, it's eating my liver!" Jesus people, try to do something by yourself. When I get back home, the union is going to hear about this.
...
Man, Skull Island is dark! Most of the time I can barely see anything, and then, when I get bitten by something (which happens a lot), my vision goes all dark, things slow down and I hear angels. The music is nice, but when it gets dark like that, it makes it hard to hit whatever is trying to digest me. I can only assume this is a side affect of the blow to the head I took earlier. Sometimes, when things are really dark, everything gets a lot brighter, but washed out, as if some benevolent being somehow adjusted the world to be brighter. Not being an idiot, I use these time to figure out where the hell I'm going, but once I do, the affect mysteriously fades. I think I have a concussion or something.
...
For a portly guy, Denham can really move. This is doubly impressive because he's got that camera on his back. Once he sees where he wants to go, he's off like a shot. Ann too, and Hayes now that I think of it. Maybe they're all on something.
...
OK, now this is really weird. I was following a path that led into a valley. Ann was climbing the rocks to meet me there. I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, because frankly she's very annoying, but I could hear her grunting away so I just assumed she was making progress. Well, I get to the valley and she's still grunting, grunting, grunting. I look up at the rocks to find her and she was climbing up into the sky. I'm serious. She was floating in the air. I looked away, and when I looked back, she was gone, but I could still hear her grunting. I found a ladder that would get me to the door lever, but I had a horrible rope climbing incident in PE as a child and ever since then, I can't climb ladders, ropes, really anything vertical. Just as I was standing there trying to figure out what the hell to do, I blacked out. When I came to, we were all standing there, Ann included as if I had never gone into the valley. This time I paid attention to Ann and shot a millipede that was trying to eat her. She then met me in the valley and opened the door for me. I think we're all being worked a little too hard to get things wrapped up for Denham's movie. I can't think of any other explanation.
...
More blackouts. Sometimes I really feel like I'm on Skull Island, like I'm a part of the whole thing, then I black out and I swear I see the word "Loading", whatever that means, and some other words that foreshadow what ends up happening. It tends to break the spell that Skull Island weaves. It's probably a tumor.
Day 2
Ann's gone. A big monkey took her. Yeah, I know. Looks like we won't be getting out of here any time soon.
...
Met up with Hayes. Man, he's bossy. The worst part about it, is he doesn't even pay attention. He's all like "Jack, you have to burn the bushes." So I do, the bushes are on fire and everything and again he's telling me to burn the bushes. So now the bushes are completely gone, and I'm walking up the path and he's telling me to burn the goddamned bushes. Jesus man, open your eyes! Denham isn't any better, in fact he's worse. I swear, I don't know what kind of cologne that guy uses but every creature on this island tries to eat that guy and it's up to me to keep them off of him. I knew I should have taken that job writing soap commercials.
...
Sorry I haven't written in a while but I've been pretty busy. Here's what I've been doing for the past few hours. Walk into a clearing, spear/shoot some dinosaurs, find some fire, burn some bushes, find a lever, open a door, walk to the next clearing. Occasionally I'll have to spear a grub or a big bug and throw it to get the swarming spider off of said lever. Good times. That Ann better be very appreciative of what I'm doing to rescue her, if you know what I mean. Very appreciative.
...
I blacked out again, and this time I dreamt that I was the monkey that took Ann. It was pretty cool to swing around and beat on other monsters, but just as I was getting into it, it was over. Based on our experiences, I don't think Denham should call his movie King Kong, I think he should call it "Spearing Monsters and Burning Bushes in a Very Dark Jungle". Catchy!
...
More monsters. More spearing. More burning bushes. Is it possible to be bored when one's life is constantly in danger? Allow me to answer. Yes, yes it is.
...
I don't think I've ever seen so many crates with so many sniper rifles. Next job I'm hired for, I'm going to ask how many sniper rifles they have laying about. If it's more than three, I ain't taking the job.
...
We found Jimmy. Man, that kid is annoying. All he does is whine. Of course, when we get on the rafts in the river, I'm stuck with him while Denham and Hayes are on the other raft. Once again, they're just bossing me around the whole time. Yes, Hayes, I know I have to burn the bridges. That's why they're on fire.
...
Had another blackout where I thought I was Kong. He fought some big V-Rex beast things. He seems to live the same repetetive life we're living at the moment. Beat up on some beasties, lift a pillar, break a door, wait for Ann to burn some brush, swing to the next clearing, beat up on some beasties, blah, blah, blah. He is a giant monkey, so I'm not sure what I'm expecting him to do, but Denham better hope that Kong does something other than this, because people won't stick around for it. I heard that Denham wants his movie to be 3 hours long. 3 hours long! A 3 hour King Kong movie? That's absurd!
Day 3
We got Ann back. Had another strange blackout. I got attacked by the V-Rex I was trying to distract while Ann opened the door, and when I came to, there was this horrible roaring in my ears that didn't subside even when I had another one of those weird Loading blackout thingies. This is starting to really bother me. I slept for a couple of hours and that seemed to fix it. As soon as we get back to civilization, I'm going to the doctor for my head and to the gym to learn how to climb a ladder. Let Ann distract the dinosaurs while I open the door. I mean, seriously.
...
Ann is gone. Again. We got trapped and she had to call Kong. Great idea except for the fact that he's not in love with the rest of us so he took her and just left us to die. Nice! Denham is gone too, which I'm OK with. His mouth movement were really starting to freak me out.
...
The pilot managed to land, which was good, except for the part where Jimmy got on the plane and they fucking left me here. Hayes was busy being eaten by something. Good riddance I say. Now it's up to me to find Ann and get back to the boat. Whatever. Next time a millipede wants to takes a chunk out of my leg, I may just let it. Hayes certainly looked happier.
...
We're leaving! Finally! After hooking up with Ann again and then losing her, I managed to make it down to the beach in time to see her and Kong come crashing through the trees. They gassed the crap out of him and he passed out. Denham wants to take him back to New York. Can you believe it? As if this whole trip wasn't bad enough, now we have to share the boat with a giant, stinking ape. Lovely. Dibbs on Hayes's suite. He won't be using it.
Two Weeks Later
Well, that was a disaster. Denham put up this big show, to unveil Kong and Kong managed to escape. He did a pretty good job of tearing up the joint, throwing cars and busting up stoplights. Eventually he grabbed Ann and climbed the Empire State Building where he was promptly shot down by planes. Oh well. I know I'm supposed to feel bad for Kong, but I didn't spend a lot of time with him. That was Ann's thing. Plus, after he dies, Denham said some sappy crap about it being beauty that killed the beast and his mouth didn't move at all. It just gaped open. Kind of hard to feel bad about a big dead monkey when a guy in tux and tails stands there, mouth agape, trying to wax philosophical. Frankly I'm just glad the whole trip is over. This is the last time I take a job based on the advice of someone who's high. Fucking Brits.
(Editor's Note - Jack Driscoll is the unfortunate playright hired to accompany the cast and crew to Skull Island where they have a run-in with a rather large monkey. Their story is told in a recent art house movie called King Kong. Perhaps you've heard of it. Said story is also told in a game called Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie , a game that takes about as long to play as it does to speak the title. This diary is a recollection of Jack's encounters while on Skull Island, as we see in the game. How we got it, I don't know. I tend not to ask too many questions as it only gets me into trouble when I have to take the stand.)
Day 1
Well here we are, beautiful Skull Island. The trip was OK, and mostly uneventful except for the part where I got nailed with a rock in the rowboat. Ouch. Head trauma aside, I'm not so sure about these people I'm traveling with. I don't know how to explain it, but when they talk, their mouths don't match up. I'm not speaking in metaphors here, their mouths literally don't move to match the words they're saying. Weird. Maybe that rock hit me harder than I thought. Plus, and I'm sure this is just me being picky, but I thought we were supposed to be in a glorious new age. If that's the case, nobody told these people because they look like shit. I'm sure I look fine, but without a mirror, it's hard to tell. My hands look wonderful, that much I can tell you.
...
5 minutes on the island and we've already been attacked by giant crabs. My traveling companions weren't much help. I hope they understand that I'm a playwrite, not the great white hunter. If I have to kill everything on this trip, it's going to be a short trip.
...
Our pilot can't land, which doesn't bode well for the trip. He's been able to drop supply crates everywhere, which is good, I guess. Man, they sure brought a lot of guns along on this trip. I'm beginning to think that answering that ad in the newspaper wasn't such a good idea. Limitless earning potential my ass.
...
Managed to burn some brush away to clear a path. Apparantly, I'm the only person here who can wield a burning spear as the other 3 just stood around barking orders at me like I'm their lapdog. Then, once we moved along and all got attacked by giant millipedes it was all "Jack save me!", "Jack where are you?" "Jack, it's eating my liver!" Jesus people, try to do something by yourself. When I get back home, the union is going to hear about this.
...
Man, Skull Island is dark! Most of the time I can barely see anything, and then, when I get bitten by something (which happens a lot), my vision goes all dark, things slow down and I hear angels. The music is nice, but when it gets dark like that, it makes it hard to hit whatever is trying to digest me. I can only assume this is a side affect of the blow to the head I took earlier. Sometimes, when things are really dark, everything gets a lot brighter, but washed out, as if some benevolent being somehow adjusted the world to be brighter. Not being an idiot, I use these time to figure out where the hell I'm going, but once I do, the affect mysteriously fades. I think I have a concussion or something.
...
For a portly guy, Denham can really move. This is doubly impressive because he's got that camera on his back. Once he sees where he wants to go, he's off like a shot. Ann too, and Hayes now that I think of it. Maybe they're all on something.
...
OK, now this is really weird. I was following a path that led into a valley. Ann was climbing the rocks to meet me there. I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, because frankly she's very annoying, but I could hear her grunting away so I just assumed she was making progress. Well, I get to the valley and she's still grunting, grunting, grunting. I look up at the rocks to find her and she was climbing up into the sky. I'm serious. She was floating in the air. I looked away, and when I looked back, she was gone, but I could still hear her grunting. I found a ladder that would get me to the door lever, but I had a horrible rope climbing incident in PE as a child and ever since then, I can't climb ladders, ropes, really anything vertical. Just as I was standing there trying to figure out what the hell to do, I blacked out. When I came to, we were all standing there, Ann included as if I had never gone into the valley. This time I paid attention to Ann and shot a millipede that was trying to eat her. She then met me in the valley and opened the door for me. I think we're all being worked a little too hard to get things wrapped up for Denham's movie. I can't think of any other explanation.
...
More blackouts. Sometimes I really feel like I'm on Skull Island, like I'm a part of the whole thing, then I black out and I swear I see the word "Loading", whatever that means, and some other words that foreshadow what ends up happening. It tends to break the spell that Skull Island weaves. It's probably a tumor.
Day 2
Ann's gone. A big monkey took her. Yeah, I know. Looks like we won't be getting out of here any time soon.
...
Met up with Hayes. Man, he's bossy. The worst part about it, is he doesn't even pay attention. He's all like "Jack, you have to burn the bushes." So I do, the bushes are on fire and everything and again he's telling me to burn the bushes. So now the bushes are completely gone, and I'm walking up the path and he's telling me to burn the goddamned bushes. Jesus man, open your eyes! Denham isn't any better, in fact he's worse. I swear, I don't know what kind of cologne that guy uses but every creature on this island tries to eat that guy and it's up to me to keep them off of him. I knew I should have taken that job writing soap commercials.
...
Sorry I haven't written in a while but I've been pretty busy. Here's what I've been doing for the past few hours. Walk into a clearing, spear/shoot some dinosaurs, find some fire, burn some bushes, find a lever, open a door, walk to the next clearing. Occasionally I'll have to spear a grub or a big bug and throw it to get the swarming spider off of said lever. Good times. That Ann better be very appreciative of what I'm doing to rescue her, if you know what I mean. Very appreciative.
...
I blacked out again, and this time I dreamt that I was the monkey that took Ann. It was pretty cool to swing around and beat on other monsters, but just as I was getting into it, it was over. Based on our experiences, I don't think Denham should call his movie King Kong, I think he should call it "Spearing Monsters and Burning Bushes in a Very Dark Jungle". Catchy!
...
More monsters. More spearing. More burning bushes. Is it possible to be bored when one's life is constantly in danger? Allow me to answer. Yes, yes it is.
...
I don't think I've ever seen so many crates with so many sniper rifles. Next job I'm hired for, I'm going to ask how many sniper rifles they have laying about. If it's more than three, I ain't taking the job.
...
We found Jimmy. Man, that kid is annoying. All he does is whine. Of course, when we get on the rafts in the river, I'm stuck with him while Denham and Hayes are on the other raft. Once again, they're just bossing me around the whole time. Yes, Hayes, I know I have to burn the bridges. That's why they're on fire.
...
Had another blackout where I thought I was Kong. He fought some big V-Rex beast things. He seems to live the same repetetive life we're living at the moment. Beat up on some beasties, lift a pillar, break a door, wait for Ann to burn some brush, swing to the next clearing, beat up on some beasties, blah, blah, blah. He is a giant monkey, so I'm not sure what I'm expecting him to do, but Denham better hope that Kong does something other than this, because people won't stick around for it. I heard that Denham wants his movie to be 3 hours long. 3 hours long! A 3 hour King Kong movie? That's absurd!
Day 3
We got Ann back. Had another strange blackout. I got attacked by the V-Rex I was trying to distract while Ann opened the door, and when I came to, there was this horrible roaring in my ears that didn't subside even when I had another one of those weird Loading blackout thingies. This is starting to really bother me. I slept for a couple of hours and that seemed to fix it. As soon as we get back to civilization, I'm going to the doctor for my head and to the gym to learn how to climb a ladder. Let Ann distract the dinosaurs while I open the door. I mean, seriously.
...
Ann is gone. Again. We got trapped and she had to call Kong. Great idea except for the fact that he's not in love with the rest of us so he took her and just left us to die. Nice! Denham is gone too, which I'm OK with. His mouth movement were really starting to freak me out.
...
The pilot managed to land, which was good, except for the part where Jimmy got on the plane and they fucking left me here. Hayes was busy being eaten by something. Good riddance I say. Now it's up to me to find Ann and get back to the boat. Whatever. Next time a millipede wants to takes a chunk out of my leg, I may just let it. Hayes certainly looked happier.
...
We're leaving! Finally! After hooking up with Ann again and then losing her, I managed to make it down to the beach in time to see her and Kong come crashing through the trees. They gassed the crap out of him and he passed out. Denham wants to take him back to New York. Can you believe it? As if this whole trip wasn't bad enough, now we have to share the boat with a giant, stinking ape. Lovely. Dibbs on Hayes's suite. He won't be using it.
Two Weeks Later
Well, that was a disaster. Denham put up this big show, to unveil Kong and Kong managed to escape. He did a pretty good job of tearing up the joint, throwing cars and busting up stoplights. Eventually he grabbed Ann and climbed the Empire State Building where he was promptly shot down by planes. Oh well. I know I'm supposed to feel bad for Kong, but I didn't spend a lot of time with him. That was Ann's thing. Plus, after he dies, Denham said some sappy crap about it being beauty that killed the beast and his mouth didn't move at all. It just gaped open. Kind of hard to feel bad about a big dead monkey when a guy in tux and tails stands there, mouth agape, trying to wax philosophical. Frankly I'm just glad the whole trip is over. This is the last time I take a job based on the advice of someone who's high. Fucking Brits.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Parenting Lessons I've Learned
Now that I have a few years of parenting under my belt, I feel that I've learned a number of things that I'm now prepared to pass on to you. Those of you without children, but thinking of obtaining some can use these nuggets to prepare yourself for the ordeal, er, journey ahead. Those of you with children can hang your heads in shame because you know that you've done similar things but you're too afraid to share your knowledge. Be afraid no more!
Hand Lotion and Snow Globes Don't Mix
So there we were, the day before we were going to take Ben to a family party for his grand unveiling. Up until this time, Linda's parents were the only people in her family who had met Ben. Her parents were throwing a July 4th party in upstate NY for the family to meet Ben and my brother-in-law's soon to be wife and stepson. I'm against facial and head trauma on general principal, but even more so when you're meeting people for the first time. I've never had an introduction go well when one or more parties have gaping head wounds. Your experiences may vary.
So it's the day we're leaving and it's my turn to put Ben down for his nap. Given that it was a bath day, I decided to give him a bath before his nap, rather than before bed as we were flying up that day and I wanted him to be able to go right to bed that night should the traveling prove exhausting. As any good parent knows, you can't just bathe a child, you have to slather them with lotion, post-bath, lest you dry out their skin and they crumble into dust at the slightest breeze. This invariably makes your hands slippery for several hours. I once gave him a bath, put him down to bed and then used the bathroom, where I was trapped for 9 days because I couldn't open the doorknob. If this were a poorly made thriller, the camera would be lingering on my slippery hands for several shots, as if to tell you, the viewer, that something important was afoot.
Ben used to have this John Lennon Imagine snow globe in his nursery.
Note the faux rocky base, as this too will be important. It matched the decor of his room and played a soothing lullaby rendition of "Imagine" when wound up. The usual routine was to put Ben in his crib, wind up the snow globe so that he could see it, place the globe on the dresser and then leave the room. This morning, for reasons unknown to me, I decided to give him a closer look at the globe after I wound it up. He got a closer look all right, as after I showed it to him, I lifted it up about 6 inches to remove it from the crib, it slipped out of my lotion-y hands and promptly proceeded to nail him in the forehead, faux rock base first. Ben looked at me stunned for a second, as if to say "did you just drop a snow globe on my head?" and then proceeded to scream his head off as if to say "YOU JUST DROPPED A FUCKING SNOW GLOBE ON MY HEAD!!!"
Now, accidentally injuring your child is bad enough, but showing said injury to the child's mother is about a million times worse. This is especially true if a) the child has never had anything of real size dropped on their head b) the child is going to be unveiled to a significant portion of the family soon and c) whatever fell on the child's head appeared to have left a permanent indentation in said child's skull in the form of faux rock. Linda was not pleased. Ben was not pleased. By extension, I was not pleased, especially at the notion of telling multiple family members that the reason my son's forehead has been cleft in twain is because I dropped an ornamental music piece on his head. Doubly so because this was my wife's family, and relations between them and I had been rocky in the past so bludgeoning the only grandchild would not endear me to them. After checking to make sure he didn't have a concussion, we iced and treated the wound and put him to bed. The rest of the day went by without incident. The trip was successful and when I told people what happened, they looked at me as if to say that by this time they expected me to have sold the baby for cd money, so this was a minor infraction. There was no permanent scarring, but to this day, when we play "Imagine", Ben drops to his knees and clutches his forehead.
Bath Time Is Not Fun Time When Blood Is Involved
If it's not apparent yet that I really have no business raising, caring for, or even being left alone, for even a minute, with children, allow me to spin another tale. Abby absolutely hates to have her face wiped, washed, or in any way subjected to moisture. Even the slightest wind on her face makes her scrunch up her features as if someone had just dropped a snow globe on it. Prior to a week or so ago, this behavior did not extend to the bath, which was odd, because water is one of the defining characteristic of a bath. We've tried bathing them in tubs of dirt and that seemed counterproductive.
Last week, as Linda was giving Abby a bath, I heard screaming from the bathroom the likes of which one would attribute to a child being savaged by wolverines. I checked the wolverine pen and they all were accounted for, even crazy ol' Zeke who likes to try and gnaw through the cage as he hungrily eyes your tasty neck flesh. Oh Zeke, you're a hoot. Anyways, after the bath I asked Linda what forest creature came and devoured the baby and she told me that a little water got on Abby's face and as a result she cried to the point where her head popped off and rolled around the bathroom floor like a little purple turnip. Being the attentive father that I am, I filed this info for future baths.
Fast forward a couple of days and it's my turn to give Abby a bath. Things are going smoothly enough, and I've been able to keep water off of her face by letting her play with a hair dryer as she splashes around. What? Oh, right. Don't worry, I put it on the "Cold" setting. Anyway, as I'm cleaning her, a single drop of water leaped angrily from the washcloth and proceeded to speed through her hair, over the crest of her skull and land on her face. Fearing that this was but a precursor to a Niagara Falls type deluge, she proceeded to scream. Loudly.
Now, I'm usually one to let my kids cry it out, because as children, they spend 95% of their time crying about something and frankly I can't be bothered to deal with ministrating to their various concerns. I paid for them to get here, I'm paying for them to go to college, the in between is mostly up to them. But, this being a bathtub, and she being a small squirmy baby, I figured that I should make some small effort to calm her down. This is when I always get into trouble.
I grabbed this plastic swimming dog thing to make it dance around and splash in the water to mollify her. I moved the dog forward, looking away for a second to pick up the washcloth, she moved her head forward at considerable speed and dog met baby skull with a force slightly more than what I would have intended. This time there was no pause before the screaming, but I think it's because she was screaming already. She did bring her volume level up to a point I've never heard before. I can assure you that her lungs and vocal cords work just fine. I quickly finished the bath and got her out of there, where she promptly calmed down and played with a brush, none the worse for wear except for three somewhat noticeable scratches on her forehead.
Again, the worst part about the ordeal was presenting the injured child to her mother. Why this woman stays married to me I have no idea. Guys, head trauma is not something your spouse will "get used to" so don't think that she'll just brush off the second busted baby skull as the same old, same old. I think she was actually more upset this time because Abby is a girl and Linda has to give Abby a bath next, so you know, good luck with that one. The next day I had to explain to the daycare coordinator what happened. Strangely enough, she looked quite concerned with my fitness as a parent until I told her about how I caved in my son's skull with a snow globe, then it seemed as if she thought that head trauma was just a parenting tool we utilized, like family beds or time outs. "Oh, the Cackowski-Schnell's? Yes, they hit their children about the head and neck. It works wonders!"
Thankfully the baby doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects, which is important as she's walking now and we want her to be able to retain her balance. Thank the gods we're not having any more children. At this rate, I'd have to figure out how to drop a refridgerator on the third on.
Hand Lotion and Snow Globes Don't Mix
So there we were, the day before we were going to take Ben to a family party for his grand unveiling. Up until this time, Linda's parents were the only people in her family who had met Ben. Her parents were throwing a July 4th party in upstate NY for the family to meet Ben and my brother-in-law's soon to be wife and stepson. I'm against facial and head trauma on general principal, but even more so when you're meeting people for the first time. I've never had an introduction go well when one or more parties have gaping head wounds. Your experiences may vary.
So it's the day we're leaving and it's my turn to put Ben down for his nap. Given that it was a bath day, I decided to give him a bath before his nap, rather than before bed as we were flying up that day and I wanted him to be able to go right to bed that night should the traveling prove exhausting. As any good parent knows, you can't just bathe a child, you have to slather them with lotion, post-bath, lest you dry out their skin and they crumble into dust at the slightest breeze. This invariably makes your hands slippery for several hours. I once gave him a bath, put him down to bed and then used the bathroom, where I was trapped for 9 days because I couldn't open the doorknob. If this were a poorly made thriller, the camera would be lingering on my slippery hands for several shots, as if to tell you, the viewer, that something important was afoot.
Ben used to have this John Lennon Imagine snow globe in his nursery.Note the faux rocky base, as this too will be important. It matched the decor of his room and played a soothing lullaby rendition of "Imagine" when wound up. The usual routine was to put Ben in his crib, wind up the snow globe so that he could see it, place the globe on the dresser and then leave the room. This morning, for reasons unknown to me, I decided to give him a closer look at the globe after I wound it up. He got a closer look all right, as after I showed it to him, I lifted it up about 6 inches to remove it from the crib, it slipped out of my lotion-y hands and promptly proceeded to nail him in the forehead, faux rock base first. Ben looked at me stunned for a second, as if to say "did you just drop a snow globe on my head?" and then proceeded to scream his head off as if to say "YOU JUST DROPPED A FUCKING SNOW GLOBE ON MY HEAD!!!"
Now, accidentally injuring your child is bad enough, but showing said injury to the child's mother is about a million times worse. This is especially true if a) the child has never had anything of real size dropped on their head b) the child is going to be unveiled to a significant portion of the family soon and c) whatever fell on the child's head appeared to have left a permanent indentation in said child's skull in the form of faux rock. Linda was not pleased. Ben was not pleased. By extension, I was not pleased, especially at the notion of telling multiple family members that the reason my son's forehead has been cleft in twain is because I dropped an ornamental music piece on his head. Doubly so because this was my wife's family, and relations between them and I had been rocky in the past so bludgeoning the only grandchild would not endear me to them. After checking to make sure he didn't have a concussion, we iced and treated the wound and put him to bed. The rest of the day went by without incident. The trip was successful and when I told people what happened, they looked at me as if to say that by this time they expected me to have sold the baby for cd money, so this was a minor infraction. There was no permanent scarring, but to this day, when we play "Imagine", Ben drops to his knees and clutches his forehead.
Bath Time Is Not Fun Time When Blood Is Involved
If it's not apparent yet that I really have no business raising, caring for, or even being left alone, for even a minute, with children, allow me to spin another tale. Abby absolutely hates to have her face wiped, washed, or in any way subjected to moisture. Even the slightest wind on her face makes her scrunch up her features as if someone had just dropped a snow globe on it. Prior to a week or so ago, this behavior did not extend to the bath, which was odd, because water is one of the defining characteristic of a bath. We've tried bathing them in tubs of dirt and that seemed counterproductive.
Last week, as Linda was giving Abby a bath, I heard screaming from the bathroom the likes of which one would attribute to a child being savaged by wolverines. I checked the wolverine pen and they all were accounted for, even crazy ol' Zeke who likes to try and gnaw through the cage as he hungrily eyes your tasty neck flesh. Oh Zeke, you're a hoot. Anyways, after the bath I asked Linda what forest creature came and devoured the baby and she told me that a little water got on Abby's face and as a result she cried to the point where her head popped off and rolled around the bathroom floor like a little purple turnip. Being the attentive father that I am, I filed this info for future baths.
Fast forward a couple of days and it's my turn to give Abby a bath. Things are going smoothly enough, and I've been able to keep water off of her face by letting her play with a hair dryer as she splashes around. What? Oh, right. Don't worry, I put it on the "Cold" setting. Anyway, as I'm cleaning her, a single drop of water leaped angrily from the washcloth and proceeded to speed through her hair, over the crest of her skull and land on her face. Fearing that this was but a precursor to a Niagara Falls type deluge, she proceeded to scream. Loudly.
Now, I'm usually one to let my kids cry it out, because as children, they spend 95% of their time crying about something and frankly I can't be bothered to deal with ministrating to their various concerns. I paid for them to get here, I'm paying for them to go to college, the in between is mostly up to them. But, this being a bathtub, and she being a small squirmy baby, I figured that I should make some small effort to calm her down. This is when I always get into trouble.
I grabbed this plastic swimming dog thing to make it dance around and splash in the water to mollify her. I moved the dog forward, looking away for a second to pick up the washcloth, she moved her head forward at considerable speed and dog met baby skull with a force slightly more than what I would have intended. This time there was no pause before the screaming, but I think it's because she was screaming already. She did bring her volume level up to a point I've never heard before. I can assure you that her lungs and vocal cords work just fine. I quickly finished the bath and got her out of there, where she promptly calmed down and played with a brush, none the worse for wear except for three somewhat noticeable scratches on her forehead.
Again, the worst part about the ordeal was presenting the injured child to her mother. Why this woman stays married to me I have no idea. Guys, head trauma is not something your spouse will "get used to" so don't think that she'll just brush off the second busted baby skull as the same old, same old. I think she was actually more upset this time because Abby is a girl and Linda has to give Abby a bath next, so you know, good luck with that one. The next day I had to explain to the daycare coordinator what happened. Strangely enough, she looked quite concerned with my fitness as a parent until I told her about how I caved in my son's skull with a snow globe, then it seemed as if she thought that head trauma was just a parenting tool we utilized, like family beds or time outs. "Oh, the Cackowski-Schnell's? Yes, they hit their children about the head and neck. It works wonders!"
Thankfully the baby doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects, which is important as she's walking now and we want her to be able to retain her balance. Thank the gods we're not having any more children. At this rate, I'd have to figure out how to drop a refridgerator on the third on.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
On the Existence of Wooden Pots, Part 1
Greeting Science Squaddies! Welcome to the maiden voyage of the SuburbanJoe Science Squad, an intrepid group of knowledge seeking adventurers. Good to have you along. I should point out that while writing this post I'm watching my "Butch Walker Live in Budokan" DVD, thereby keeping to two of my resolutions at once. Impressive, I know. For the record, for those of you not morally opposed to rocking out at dangerous levels, you could do worse than buying Mr. Walker's DVD. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. Do not be scared by the fact that it's from Sony. As far as I know, it has not installed any rootkit software on my DVD player, however if porn mysteriously shows up in said player, blame it on the hackers.
Today's scientific inquiry comes from a conversation me and the missus had many years ago. As I was cooking, and stirring something on the stove with a wooden spoon, Linda asked me why people use wooden spoons instead of metal spoons. I told her that some people think that metal imparts a bad taste to the food. She then uttered the classic question, "Then why don't people use wooden pans." That's my wife ladies and gentlemen.
As I was coming up with my first entry for these posts, she recommended I write about why people don't use wooden pans. The more I thought about it, disregarding the obvious reason of course, I thought that it was an excellent question, so today we tackle the question of the ages:
Why Don't People Use Wooden Pans?
One caveat before we get started. I'm not a scientist, I'm just a guy who likes finding things out. I say this because I don't want to give the impression that the answers I'm giving here are the end all and be all to the question at hand. It's just one explanation. The beauty of the sciences is that often times, there are multiple scientific explanations to things and if you extend your view of fields that the term "science" encompasses, you can find even more answers. So far, I've found that for every answer I find, I find 5 more questions, but that's a good thing. OK, caveat over. Let's roll.
The first thing to talk about is that heat will always go from a hot object to a cold object, provided that the system isn't so well insulated as to prevent the transfer of heat. This is why, when ice is placed in a cup of hot water, the ice melts (gets warmer) and the water gets a little cooler, rather than the ice getting colder and the water getting hotter. That would be some fucked up shit. Heat transfer is dependent upon the substance that is between the hot thing and the cold thing. In our example, it would be whatever the pan is made of. Every value has a constant called the thermal conductivity (k) that defines the rate that energy will transfer through a slab of material of a given size and thickness at room temperature. Bigger numbers mean that heat transfers more quickly, lower number means a slower transfer. For the record, this constant is also a good measure of electrical conductivity, with some exceptions, if that's how you roll.
For the sake of our discussion, we're going to assume that our non-wood cooking pan is made out of cast iron. I don't know how the various non-stick coatings would affect heat conductivity and such, so I'm going with cast iron which is a little more manageable. Wood is just, well wood. If you can find a tree out there that acts like metal, feel free to let me know and I'll specify a less conductive wood accordingly. Good luck.
OK, so, thermal conductivity. For cast iron, the thermal conductivity value is 55 (forgive me for not using units. Physics teachers everywhere are cringing.) In comparison, wood has a thermal conductivity that ranges from 0.04 for balsa to 0.35 to fir. As you can see, heat goes through cast iron like a hot knife through butter, and through wood like something less hot and less buttery. The difference in heat conductivity also explains why you can pick up a stick that's burning on one end and not have any adverse affects. Pick up an iron rod that's glowing on one end and most likely you won't be shaking hands with anyone for some time. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too high of a thermal conductivity for your cooking surface, as you want to allow the heat to diffuse throughout the pan's surface as well as transfer to the food. Otherwise you'll only get heat right over the heat source, which leads to scorching and bad feelings.
It's not really fair to compare wood and cast iron in terms of thermal conductivity. Cast iron is a (mostly) pure solid with a crystalline structure that just begs to conduct heat. Start agitating the atoms and electrons at one end and those vibrations will move through the substance and heat up the whole thing. Wood on the other hand, is a paella of water, cellulose, lignin and other loosey-goosey compounds. That being said, here's your simple answer as to why there are no wooden pans, wood has a shitty thermal conductivity value, and therefore would not transmit heat from the heat source to the food effectively enough to cook well, if at all. Strangely enough, you'd be better off with a pan made of ice (k = 2.2). Chew on that one.
Also, people use wooden spoons so as to not conduct heat away from what's being cooked, which can happen with a metal spoon. That's not really a concern when making stew, but when making candy you can end up screwing up your crystallization. That's right, somewhere out there there's a guy at the 3 Musketeers factory stirring a big vat of nougat with a massive wooden spoon.
That's not to say that there aren't wooden pans out there. Go to any gourmet food stores and you'll see fancy-pants cedar planks for grilling. The idea is that you soak the plank overnight, fire up the grill, place your meat (usually salmon) on the plank and grill with the lid closed. As the meat cooks, the plank smokes and chars and adds some smokey goodness to the meat. You can then serve your meal on a smoking, charred hunk of wood, which then makes your guests smell like smoking, charred hunks of wood. Now, as the lid is closed in this case, it's the indirect hear circulating through the grill that cooks the meat, rather than heat being transferred from the heat source through the plank and to the meat. Given that this is the case, the pan in question is more like a baking sheet and less like a frying pan. If you want to go this route with your baked goods, more power to you, but forgive me if I skip the cookies.
Next week: On Wood and Melty Things
Sources: Fundamentals of Physics, Extended Edition, Halliday, Resnick & Walker
Wikipedia - Thermal Conductivity
Thermal Conductivity - Ulf Bolmstedt
The Physics Hypertextbook - Conduction, Glenn Elert
Today's scientific inquiry comes from a conversation me and the missus had many years ago. As I was cooking, and stirring something on the stove with a wooden spoon, Linda asked me why people use wooden spoons instead of metal spoons. I told her that some people think that metal imparts a bad taste to the food. She then uttered the classic question, "Then why don't people use wooden pans." That's my wife ladies and gentlemen.
As I was coming up with my first entry for these posts, she recommended I write about why people don't use wooden pans. The more I thought about it, disregarding the obvious reason of course, I thought that it was an excellent question, so today we tackle the question of the ages:
Why Don't People Use Wooden Pans?
One caveat before we get started. I'm not a scientist, I'm just a guy who likes finding things out. I say this because I don't want to give the impression that the answers I'm giving here are the end all and be all to the question at hand. It's just one explanation. The beauty of the sciences is that often times, there are multiple scientific explanations to things and if you extend your view of fields that the term "science" encompasses, you can find even more answers. So far, I've found that for every answer I find, I find 5 more questions, but that's a good thing. OK, caveat over. Let's roll.
The first thing to talk about is that heat will always go from a hot object to a cold object, provided that the system isn't so well insulated as to prevent the transfer of heat. This is why, when ice is placed in a cup of hot water, the ice melts (gets warmer) and the water gets a little cooler, rather than the ice getting colder and the water getting hotter. That would be some fucked up shit. Heat transfer is dependent upon the substance that is between the hot thing and the cold thing. In our example, it would be whatever the pan is made of. Every value has a constant called the thermal conductivity (k) that defines the rate that energy will transfer through a slab of material of a given size and thickness at room temperature. Bigger numbers mean that heat transfers more quickly, lower number means a slower transfer. For the record, this constant is also a good measure of electrical conductivity, with some exceptions, if that's how you roll.
For the sake of our discussion, we're going to assume that our non-wood cooking pan is made out of cast iron. I don't know how the various non-stick coatings would affect heat conductivity and such, so I'm going with cast iron which is a little more manageable. Wood is just, well wood. If you can find a tree out there that acts like metal, feel free to let me know and I'll specify a less conductive wood accordingly. Good luck.
OK, so, thermal conductivity. For cast iron, the thermal conductivity value is 55 (forgive me for not using units. Physics teachers everywhere are cringing.) In comparison, wood has a thermal conductivity that ranges from 0.04 for balsa to 0.35 to fir. As you can see, heat goes through cast iron like a hot knife through butter, and through wood like something less hot and less buttery. The difference in heat conductivity also explains why you can pick up a stick that's burning on one end and not have any adverse affects. Pick up an iron rod that's glowing on one end and most likely you won't be shaking hands with anyone for some time. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too high of a thermal conductivity for your cooking surface, as you want to allow the heat to diffuse throughout the pan's surface as well as transfer to the food. Otherwise you'll only get heat right over the heat source, which leads to scorching and bad feelings.
It's not really fair to compare wood and cast iron in terms of thermal conductivity. Cast iron is a (mostly) pure solid with a crystalline structure that just begs to conduct heat. Start agitating the atoms and electrons at one end and those vibrations will move through the substance and heat up the whole thing. Wood on the other hand, is a paella of water, cellulose, lignin and other loosey-goosey compounds. That being said, here's your simple answer as to why there are no wooden pans, wood has a shitty thermal conductivity value, and therefore would not transmit heat from the heat source to the food effectively enough to cook well, if at all. Strangely enough, you'd be better off with a pan made of ice (k = 2.2). Chew on that one.
Also, people use wooden spoons so as to not conduct heat away from what's being cooked, which can happen with a metal spoon. That's not really a concern when making stew, but when making candy you can end up screwing up your crystallization. That's right, somewhere out there there's a guy at the 3 Musketeers factory stirring a big vat of nougat with a massive wooden spoon.
That's not to say that there aren't wooden pans out there. Go to any gourmet food stores and you'll see fancy-pants cedar planks for grilling. The idea is that you soak the plank overnight, fire up the grill, place your meat (usually salmon) on the plank and grill with the lid closed. As the meat cooks, the plank smokes and chars and adds some smokey goodness to the meat. You can then serve your meal on a smoking, charred hunk of wood, which then makes your guests smell like smoking, charred hunks of wood. Now, as the lid is closed in this case, it's the indirect hear circulating through the grill that cooks the meat, rather than heat being transferred from the heat source through the plank and to the meat. Given that this is the case, the pan in question is more like a baking sheet and less like a frying pan. If you want to go this route with your baked goods, more power to you, but forgive me if I skip the cookies.
Next week: On Wood and Melty Things
Sources: Fundamentals of Physics, Extended Edition, Halliday, Resnick & Walker
Wikipedia - Thermal Conductivity
Thermal Conductivity - Ulf Bolmstedt
The Physics Hypertextbook - Conduction, Glenn Elert
Monday, January 23, 2006
I Heart Shooting Nazis
The first time I played Call of Duty 2, Activision and Infinity Ward's WWII shooter for the Xbox 360, I got my ass handed to me. I was playing the game at a demo kiosk in Wal-Mart, marveling at the graphics as me and my squad mates were driven into a small African town that was infested with Nazis. Once we arrived, I jumped out of the truck, stood straight up, looked around and got shot about a dozen times. Once the game reloaded, I resisted the urge to stand up, followed my squad mates around a corner, hunkered down and got blown up by several grenades. This went on for about 20 minutes before I realized that I was being watched by a 10 year old. Not comfortable with him witnessing all that violence I left. He promptly picked up the controller and personally drove the Germans out of Africa with only a broken bottle and a book of matches.
Based on this experience, I assumed that CoD2 wasn't going to be my cup of tea and that the Allies would have to win this one without me. Oddly enough, a few months later, CoD2 became the first 360 game I played and finished once I finally got my hands on the console. All this despite the rather long list of things I hate about today's shooters, which I shall discuss at length. Welcome dear reader, to this week's gaming post.
By all accounts, I should have hated Call of Duty 2, and probably not even purchased it in the first place. Let us, as the kids say, break it down.
Storm Omaha Beach! Again! No, Really, It's Different This Time!
Based on the sheer number of WWII titles out there, you would think that the heavy hitters of the video game industry found a way to go back in time and start the Big One so they would have a wealth of material to mine for our digital entertainment needs. I usually shy away from WWII shooters as I played "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault" on the PC and truthfully, if you've shot one Nazi, you've shot them all. I'm sure for the WWII aficionados, there are subtle differences between Bombed Out French Town #43 and Bombed Out French Town #57 but it's all rubble to me. There are only so many variations on the "Noun of Noun" title theme to keep me interested so I found myself intrigued at my interest in CoD2. What CoD2 does, better than any other game yet, is make you feel as if you are right in the heart of the conflict. The 360 can have a frackin' huge number of things going on at the same time, so the level of immersion makes it feel as if you've never actually played a WWII game before. Plus, the fact that you play as three different soldiers, a Soviet, a Brit and an American, in three different points in the campaign, you see the war at various points, with very different goals and objectives. Staving off waves of Germans as you attempt to defend Stalingrad is very different from moving through the African desert as you take out anti-tank guns. It's all very different and it's all very well done.
Behold My Backpack! It's..big.
As shooters have evolved, designers seem to have equated more realism with more evolved, which has resulted in one of the more annoying aspects of today's shooters, namely the ability to only carry one or two weapons at a time. Shooters are there for us to shoot things, with as many weapons as possible. I understand the need to make things are realistic as possible but let's be honest here. The odds that a theoretical physicist can pick up an assault weapon and start taking out Delta Force commandos and black-ops ninja chicks in Half-Life are small enough to exist in a state unobservable to the naked eye. We do not suspend our disbelief when we play shooters, we fucking expel it. Our disbelief is in juvie for burning down its uncle's barn. Give us our weapons, let us carry as much as we want, and just be judicious with ammo if you don't want us rocket humping everything. Plus, I always thought it was annoying that in Halo you're a massive supersoldier in your two ton armor, but you can't carry more than two pistols? Yeah, OK. That being said, CoD2 only allows you to carry two weapons at a time. I think that the reason it didn't bother me is because you're constantly surrounded by your fellow soldiers in the game, and they're backpacks aren't bristling with a startling array of destructive power. Most shooters have you going solo, and rarely offer 3-way mirrors so that you can check out just where you're keeping that rocket launcher, so you never see how ridiculous it would look to carry a dozen firearms. With your squad mates, CoD2 offers you constant reminders of what you look like, so it'd be worse in this case, if they're all carrying one weapon and you have half of the Allied armaments in your knapsack.
Somebody Saaaaaaaveee Meeeeeeee!!!
Finally, CoD2 uses the checkpoint save system which I abhor. Technology has moved us forward to the point where you can comfortably fit enough storage space on a memory card to allow users to save whenever and wherever they want, the only limiting factor being the number of saves. To not allow this always smacks of laziness to me. Oh sure, you can say that you don't want the users constantly stopping and saving because it will ruin the flow of the game. By the same logic, we shouldn't have the ability to pause DVD's because we don't want the viewer ruining the flow of the movie by constantly pausing and going to the bathroom. Bottom line is that if I've paid 50 bucks, or in the case of CoD2, 60 bucks, for a game, the flow of the game is entrely up to me. Besides, I don't always have a full hour to devote to a game, so if the devs make the checkpoints too far apart, you're forcing me to play something other than your game, lest I make progress and then lose it. That hardly seems like a good design decision. CoD2 manages to place checkpoints early and often enough that on the "normal" level of difficulty, you rarely have to replay portions over and over. The highest compliment I can pay to the save system is that, with few exceptions, they saved for me right where I would have saved myself.
I have to admit that when I bought CoD2, I was concerned that I was buying it simply to fill the void that my still absent 360 wasn't filling. I had gone to Target, watched someone who wasn't retarded play CoD2 and then, using what I had seen, managed to get through the African level without getting blown up. It seemed like fun, but would it be enough fun to last for the entire game, or was I just looking to bring home anything for the 360, to get me through those long, cold nights? I'm certainly glad I purchased the game, and might actually go back and attempt the levels at harder difficulty levels to unlock additional achievements, which would be yet another thing about this game that I normally don't do with other games. I don't think it's going to get me to play additional WW2 shooters, but it's a fair testament to the idea that a good gameplay can get people to play games that they normally wouldn't, and forgive faults not forgiven in lesser titles.
Next week: Monkey Lovin' or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kong
Based on this experience, I assumed that CoD2 wasn't going to be my cup of tea and that the Allies would have to win this one without me. Oddly enough, a few months later, CoD2 became the first 360 game I played and finished once I finally got my hands on the console. All this despite the rather long list of things I hate about today's shooters, which I shall discuss at length. Welcome dear reader, to this week's gaming post.
By all accounts, I should have hated Call of Duty 2, and probably not even purchased it in the first place. Let us, as the kids say, break it down.
Storm Omaha Beach! Again! No, Really, It's Different This Time!
Based on the sheer number of WWII titles out there, you would think that the heavy hitters of the video game industry found a way to go back in time and start the Big One so they would have a wealth of material to mine for our digital entertainment needs. I usually shy away from WWII shooters as I played "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault" on the PC and truthfully, if you've shot one Nazi, you've shot them all. I'm sure for the WWII aficionados, there are subtle differences between Bombed Out French Town #43 and Bombed Out French Town #57 but it's all rubble to me. There are only so many variations on the "Noun of Noun" title theme to keep me interested so I found myself intrigued at my interest in CoD2. What CoD2 does, better than any other game yet, is make you feel as if you are right in the heart of the conflict. The 360 can have a frackin' huge number of things going on at the same time, so the level of immersion makes it feel as if you've never actually played a WWII game before. Plus, the fact that you play as three different soldiers, a Soviet, a Brit and an American, in three different points in the campaign, you see the war at various points, with very different goals and objectives. Staving off waves of Germans as you attempt to defend Stalingrad is very different from moving through the African desert as you take out anti-tank guns. It's all very different and it's all very well done.
Behold My Backpack! It's..big.
As shooters have evolved, designers seem to have equated more realism with more evolved, which has resulted in one of the more annoying aspects of today's shooters, namely the ability to only carry one or two weapons at a time. Shooters are there for us to shoot things, with as many weapons as possible. I understand the need to make things are realistic as possible but let's be honest here. The odds that a theoretical physicist can pick up an assault weapon and start taking out Delta Force commandos and black-ops ninja chicks in Half-Life are small enough to exist in a state unobservable to the naked eye. We do not suspend our disbelief when we play shooters, we fucking expel it. Our disbelief is in juvie for burning down its uncle's barn. Give us our weapons, let us carry as much as we want, and just be judicious with ammo if you don't want us rocket humping everything. Plus, I always thought it was annoying that in Halo you're a massive supersoldier in your two ton armor, but you can't carry more than two pistols? Yeah, OK. That being said, CoD2 only allows you to carry two weapons at a time. I think that the reason it didn't bother me is because you're constantly surrounded by your fellow soldiers in the game, and they're backpacks aren't bristling with a startling array of destructive power. Most shooters have you going solo, and rarely offer 3-way mirrors so that you can check out just where you're keeping that rocket launcher, so you never see how ridiculous it would look to carry a dozen firearms. With your squad mates, CoD2 offers you constant reminders of what you look like, so it'd be worse in this case, if they're all carrying one weapon and you have half of the Allied armaments in your knapsack.
Somebody Saaaaaaaveee Meeeeeeee!!!
Finally, CoD2 uses the checkpoint save system which I abhor. Technology has moved us forward to the point where you can comfortably fit enough storage space on a memory card to allow users to save whenever and wherever they want, the only limiting factor being the number of saves. To not allow this always smacks of laziness to me. Oh sure, you can say that you don't want the users constantly stopping and saving because it will ruin the flow of the game. By the same logic, we shouldn't have the ability to pause DVD's because we don't want the viewer ruining the flow of the movie by constantly pausing and going to the bathroom. Bottom line is that if I've paid 50 bucks, or in the case of CoD2, 60 bucks, for a game, the flow of the game is entrely up to me. Besides, I don't always have a full hour to devote to a game, so if the devs make the checkpoints too far apart, you're forcing me to play something other than your game, lest I make progress and then lose it. That hardly seems like a good design decision. CoD2 manages to place checkpoints early and often enough that on the "normal" level of difficulty, you rarely have to replay portions over and over. The highest compliment I can pay to the save system is that, with few exceptions, they saved for me right where I would have saved myself.
I have to admit that when I bought CoD2, I was concerned that I was buying it simply to fill the void that my still absent 360 wasn't filling. I had gone to Target, watched someone who wasn't retarded play CoD2 and then, using what I had seen, managed to get through the African level without getting blown up. It seemed like fun, but would it be enough fun to last for the entire game, or was I just looking to bring home anything for the 360, to get me through those long, cold nights? I'm certainly glad I purchased the game, and might actually go back and attempt the levels at harder difficulty levels to unlock additional achievements, which would be yet another thing about this game that I normally don't do with other games. I don't think it's going to get me to play additional WW2 shooters, but it's a fair testament to the idea that a good gameplay can get people to play games that they normally wouldn't, and forgive faults not forgiven in lesser titles.
Next week: Monkey Lovin' or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kong
Friday, January 20, 2006
New Year's Resolutions
Well here we are, with the first on-schedule post. Woo-hoo! We've got a 100% success rate. Maybe I should quit after this post and go out on top, before the crushing weight of failure snuffs my spirit from existance. Out, our brief candle! Thou art brief. And, um, candle-y.
I know it's late for resolutions for the new year, but I've been very busy shooting Nazis in Call of Duty 2 and now I'm trying to liberate Earth from the Combine in Half-Life 2 so excuse me if I put aside my own personal betterment for the sake of freedom. Yeah, I thought so.
As a rule, I don't do resolutions so these may not be your traditional "I'm going to stop beating my kids" resolutions. For the record, I have no intentions of stopping the beatings. It's the only thing keeping those monsters in line.
Stop Being So Goddamned Awesome
I am just a supremely amazing human being and sometimes it's offputting for those that are just meeting me. They don't come right out and say it, but I can tell that the sheer brilliance of my personality only lengthens the shadow of their own inferiority. I try, I really do, to make them feel as if they have some sort of chance to achieve the level of superawesomeness that I've achieved, but truthfully, I think they see it for the fallacy that it really is. It's not my fault I'm so neato keen. Just the luck of the draw, I guess. But, I'm tired of people avoiding me, presumably because I rock so hard, so I'm going to try and tone it down a notch and be more like those that should be groveling at my feet as I claim my rightful seat of Lord and Master of All Creation.
Smoke More
No, not weed you stoner bastard, although I haven't rolled in a fatty in well, never. Anyways, I hold smoked meat on a pedestal that is usually reserved for revered dieties. The process of smoking meat is one of science and art, careful monitoring of temperatures, liberal amounts of spices and slathers, copious amounts of malt beverages. It is truly the hobby of the blessed. It is also a hobby for those with lots of time on their hands as a pork butt doesn't turn into deliciously tender pulled pork with a wave of one's hand. Since moving to GA, I've smoked twice. Once I did a brisket that was pretty damn good and recently I did some pork butts that were so good, I question the sanity of the individual who does not eat precious little piggly-wigglies. I also have not been grilling, which is a shame, because my mad culinary skillz shine brightest in front of the Weber Genesis Silver B. My meat wrapped in meat recipe is one for the ages. So, with these shortcomings in mind, I resolve to smoke once at least once a month. Be it ribs, chicken, meatloaf, pulled pork, brisket, hell even a bucket of peanuts, they shall all fall to the smoke and flame. I'm also going to try and grill more and reclaim my throne as Lord of the Flames.
Obtain Super Powers
I have wanted super powers since I was a wee lad, and now that we're going on close to 26 years in this quest, it's become a tad ridiculous. I mean, come on people, how hard is it to bestow me with powers beyond those of mortal men? I've tried dousing myself with chemicals in hope that an errant lightning bolt will merge me with the Speed Force, but all that's happened is that I've grown 5 extra nipples. Actually, I had grown six, but the irradiated spider bite took care of one of them. In my quest for powers I have decided that I have to be a little more picky with my abilities. As a child, I wanted to be Spider-Man, however now that I live in the suburbs, web slinging is an impractical mode of transportation. Being the Human Torch would be cool. There are countless times when, sitting in a boring meeting, I've wanted to say "You know what? Fuck this. FLAME ON!!", burst into flame, burned through the window and took off, soaring into the sky, cackling with glee. However, without the proper flame retardant suit, those powers could be potentially embarassing for someone as out of shape as myself. Plus, and here's the important thing, any power that brings the watchful eye of our government on me will most likely result in me being stuck in some eastern European prison as they try to harvest my DNA to create super-soldiers. So crime fighting is definitely out. Adamantium claws would be cool, but other than opening cans, probably not all that useful. I think I'd like either mind control, so that I could convince my boss that I actually did show up for work or the ability to stop time so that I could boost shit from stores. Noble goals, I know.
Watch More Movies That I Own
At last count, I have 160 DVD's, not counting tv shows on DVD. This is just movies and concerts. Since bringing them into my home, I've watched 100 of them. That means that there are 60 DVD's (more when you factor in the TV shows) that have been purchased, opened and put on the shelf without even visiting the player. Oh sure, I've seen Bring it On and About A Boy at least a half dozen times each, but perhaps I should spend some time with some of the other movies. So, I'm going to start watching movies, or TV shows when I usually play games. Not too much, maybe a movie a week, but enough to use my kick ass home theater for something other than Geometry Wars.
Post More
Hopefully the schedule will take care of this one. If not, then I'll have to turn this blog into the premiere repository of hamster porn. Rowr!
I know it's late for resolutions for the new year, but I've been very busy shooting Nazis in Call of Duty 2 and now I'm trying to liberate Earth from the Combine in Half-Life 2 so excuse me if I put aside my own personal betterment for the sake of freedom. Yeah, I thought so.
As a rule, I don't do resolutions so these may not be your traditional "I'm going to stop beating my kids" resolutions. For the record, I have no intentions of stopping the beatings. It's the only thing keeping those monsters in line.
Stop Being So Goddamned Awesome
I am just a supremely amazing human being and sometimes it's offputting for those that are just meeting me. They don't come right out and say it, but I can tell that the sheer brilliance of my personality only lengthens the shadow of their own inferiority. I try, I really do, to make them feel as if they have some sort of chance to achieve the level of superawesomeness that I've achieved, but truthfully, I think they see it for the fallacy that it really is. It's not my fault I'm so neato keen. Just the luck of the draw, I guess. But, I'm tired of people avoiding me, presumably because I rock so hard, so I'm going to try and tone it down a notch and be more like those that should be groveling at my feet as I claim my rightful seat of Lord and Master of All Creation.
Smoke More
No, not weed you stoner bastard, although I haven't rolled in a fatty in well, never. Anyways, I hold smoked meat on a pedestal that is usually reserved for revered dieties. The process of smoking meat is one of science and art, careful monitoring of temperatures, liberal amounts of spices and slathers, copious amounts of malt beverages. It is truly the hobby of the blessed. It is also a hobby for those with lots of time on their hands as a pork butt doesn't turn into deliciously tender pulled pork with a wave of one's hand. Since moving to GA, I've smoked twice. Once I did a brisket that was pretty damn good and recently I did some pork butts that were so good, I question the sanity of the individual who does not eat precious little piggly-wigglies. I also have not been grilling, which is a shame, because my mad culinary skillz shine brightest in front of the Weber Genesis Silver B. My meat wrapped in meat recipe is one for the ages. So, with these shortcomings in mind, I resolve to smoke once at least once a month. Be it ribs, chicken, meatloaf, pulled pork, brisket, hell even a bucket of peanuts, they shall all fall to the smoke and flame. I'm also going to try and grill more and reclaim my throne as Lord of the Flames.
Obtain Super Powers
I have wanted super powers since I was a wee lad, and now that we're going on close to 26 years in this quest, it's become a tad ridiculous. I mean, come on people, how hard is it to bestow me with powers beyond those of mortal men? I've tried dousing myself with chemicals in hope that an errant lightning bolt will merge me with the Speed Force, but all that's happened is that I've grown 5 extra nipples. Actually, I had grown six, but the irradiated spider bite took care of one of them. In my quest for powers I have decided that I have to be a little more picky with my abilities. As a child, I wanted to be Spider-Man, however now that I live in the suburbs, web slinging is an impractical mode of transportation. Being the Human Torch would be cool. There are countless times when, sitting in a boring meeting, I've wanted to say "You know what? Fuck this. FLAME ON!!", burst into flame, burned through the window and took off, soaring into the sky, cackling with glee. However, without the proper flame retardant suit, those powers could be potentially embarassing for someone as out of shape as myself. Plus, and here's the important thing, any power that brings the watchful eye of our government on me will most likely result in me being stuck in some eastern European prison as they try to harvest my DNA to create super-soldiers. So crime fighting is definitely out. Adamantium claws would be cool, but other than opening cans, probably not all that useful. I think I'd like either mind control, so that I could convince my boss that I actually did show up for work or the ability to stop time so that I could boost shit from stores. Noble goals, I know.
Watch More Movies That I Own
At last count, I have 160 DVD's, not counting tv shows on DVD. This is just movies and concerts. Since bringing them into my home, I've watched 100 of them. That means that there are 60 DVD's (more when you factor in the TV shows) that have been purchased, opened and put on the shelf without even visiting the player. Oh sure, I've seen Bring it On and About A Boy at least a half dozen times each, but perhaps I should spend some time with some of the other movies. So, I'm going to start watching movies, or TV shows when I usually play games. Not too much, maybe a movie a week, but enough to use my kick ass home theater for something other than Geometry Wars.
Post More
Hopefully the schedule will take care of this one. If not, then I'll have to turn this blog into the premiere repository of hamster porn. Rowr!
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Scheduled Appearances
We have a lot to cover, so let's get right to it.
First of all, much props to the Football Gods. Yes we lost, but not for lack of opportunities. I mean, they gave the NFL MVP a concussion, thereby eliminating him and his wily running ways and we do nothing with it. Such is life with only 2 receivers, one of which isn't even a wide receiver. I think that if we get a good complement to Moss we'll be doing well next year. For now, I'm less excited about the post season now that the Colts and the Pats are out of it, but the Super Bowl still holds its usual junk-food and summer movie commercial filled allure so I'll be there regardless of the combatants. And by God, there will be Poppers.
As you are all well aware now, this site has not become synonymous with regular content. Oh sure, every week or so I drop by to blather on about things, but were there some sort of time keeping device that measured weeks, rather than seconds, I would not suggest you use this site to synchronize said device lest you end up with a horribly unsynchronized situation.
I am making moves to rectify this, but first, an explanation. I'd like to spin a tale now about personal woe and how after volunteering at the animal shelter and the retirement home, I barely have enough time to rehabilitate injured seabirds, but the fact is that I am a supremely lazy human being. I actually have reams and reams of ideas to write about, but the effort involved is something I can't be bothered with. That's not entirely true. I enjoy writing and knowing that the half-dozen of you actually read it, but I always find something else to do, something else being video games. Seeing as I have no plans to give up playing video games, I've decided to implement a schedule here at the homestead. Behold the majiks of the calendar!
I know that many bloggers, although I am loathe to call myself one of those, hate schedules because they like to update when the mood hits them. Well, at 33, I'm well aware of my failings, and being unable to do most things without at least a smidge of prodding is one of them. The schedule shall be that smidge. This will also give you, dear reader, assurances that when you come here on key days, there will be new content, glistening like a newborn, just without all the snot and horribly swollen genitalia.
This brings me to my next topic, which is what shall we be writing about? As you know, we cover a bunch of topics here, but my interests lie mainly with video games, and every other thing in my life that isn't video games. To that end, I'll have one post a week that focuses on video games, and one that doesn't. For those of you that don't care about video games, please don't take this as an excuse to not read my ramblings, because I can assure you that my posts about gaming will be filled with the same fluffy goodness as my other posts. That's like, a fuckload of fluffy goodness.
Finally, and this is what I'm actually most excited about, is that I'm going to do a weekly column about science. Yes, science. I have a degree in Physics, and presently all it does is annoy my father with its spent promises of scientific glory and its massive higher educational pricetag. Well, that ends now. I read few blogs every day, but John Scalzi's Whatever is one of them. In this stirring post, he talks about his unmet life goals. One of them was to evangalize science. When I read that I was like, "Hell yes". I love science, and all of it's scientific goodness, and it pains me to see folks not be as excited about the underpinnings of their universe as I am. To that end, I'm planning on writing a post every week that takes something scientific and breaks it down in readable, hopefully humorous English. This will take research on my part, which means I get to learn things too, so it's a win-win. I would also like to open this part of the site up to you, dear reader. Through the comments, or by emailing me at suburbanjoe at gmail dot com, send me any scientific questions and I will endeavor to answer them.
That being said, I'm not going to write your goddamned thesis, neither will I do your book report on Madame Curie. Goddammit Timmy, you've had that assignment for weeks, just sit down and do it. I am also not going to limit myself to the hard sciences like physics, chemistry, coke and heroin. I'll also do columns on the soft sciences like psychology, anthropology, weed and whippets. Heh-heh, whippets.
So, my little calandar monkeys, the schedule looks like this. Monday is gaming day, as I'll be fresh off of a weekend of digital tomfoolery. Wednesday is science day, for those of you that need a healthy dollop of fancy book learnin' to get them over the hump, and Friday will be freestyle day. Freestyle Fridays, if you will. Yes, I will. I will indeed. I'll still drop knowledge on you on unscheduled days, to ensure things stay unpredictiable, so make sure you come back daily. Hourly is preferable. Hopefully this will keep me writing, keep you reading and we'll all learn something. Well, mostly you, because I'm like, wicked smart.
First of all, much props to the Football Gods. Yes we lost, but not for lack of opportunities. I mean, they gave the NFL MVP a concussion, thereby eliminating him and his wily running ways and we do nothing with it. Such is life with only 2 receivers, one of which isn't even a wide receiver. I think that if we get a good complement to Moss we'll be doing well next year. For now, I'm less excited about the post season now that the Colts and the Pats are out of it, but the Super Bowl still holds its usual junk-food and summer movie commercial filled allure so I'll be there regardless of the combatants. And by God, there will be Poppers.
As you are all well aware now, this site has not become synonymous with regular content. Oh sure, every week or so I drop by to blather on about things, but were there some sort of time keeping device that measured weeks, rather than seconds, I would not suggest you use this site to synchronize said device lest you end up with a horribly unsynchronized situation.
I am making moves to rectify this, but first, an explanation. I'd like to spin a tale now about personal woe and how after volunteering at the animal shelter and the retirement home, I barely have enough time to rehabilitate injured seabirds, but the fact is that I am a supremely lazy human being. I actually have reams and reams of ideas to write about, but the effort involved is something I can't be bothered with. That's not entirely true. I enjoy writing and knowing that the half-dozen of you actually read it, but I always find something else to do, something else being video games. Seeing as I have no plans to give up playing video games, I've decided to implement a schedule here at the homestead. Behold the majiks of the calendar!
I know that many bloggers, although I am loathe to call myself one of those, hate schedules because they like to update when the mood hits them. Well, at 33, I'm well aware of my failings, and being unable to do most things without at least a smidge of prodding is one of them. The schedule shall be that smidge. This will also give you, dear reader, assurances that when you come here on key days, there will be new content, glistening like a newborn, just without all the snot and horribly swollen genitalia.
This brings me to my next topic, which is what shall we be writing about? As you know, we cover a bunch of topics here, but my interests lie mainly with video games, and every other thing in my life that isn't video games. To that end, I'll have one post a week that focuses on video games, and one that doesn't. For those of you that don't care about video games, please don't take this as an excuse to not read my ramblings, because I can assure you that my posts about gaming will be filled with the same fluffy goodness as my other posts. That's like, a fuckload of fluffy goodness.
Finally, and this is what I'm actually most excited about, is that I'm going to do a weekly column about science. Yes, science. I have a degree in Physics, and presently all it does is annoy my father with its spent promises of scientific glory and its massive higher educational pricetag. Well, that ends now. I read few blogs every day, but John Scalzi's Whatever is one of them. In this stirring post, he talks about his unmet life goals. One of them was to evangalize science. When I read that I was like, "Hell yes". I love science, and all of it's scientific goodness, and it pains me to see folks not be as excited about the underpinnings of their universe as I am. To that end, I'm planning on writing a post every week that takes something scientific and breaks it down in readable, hopefully humorous English. This will take research on my part, which means I get to learn things too, so it's a win-win. I would also like to open this part of the site up to you, dear reader. Through the comments, or by emailing me at suburbanjoe at gmail dot com, send me any scientific questions and I will endeavor to answer them.
That being said, I'm not going to write your goddamned thesis, neither will I do your book report on Madame Curie. Goddammit Timmy, you've had that assignment for weeks, just sit down and do it. I am also not going to limit myself to the hard sciences like physics, chemistry, coke and heroin. I'll also do columns on the soft sciences like psychology, anthropology, weed and whippets. Heh-heh, whippets.
So, my little calandar monkeys, the schedule looks like this. Monday is gaming day, as I'll be fresh off of a weekend of digital tomfoolery. Wednesday is science day, for those of you that need a healthy dollop of fancy book learnin' to get them over the hump, and Friday will be freestyle day. Freestyle Fridays, if you will. Yes, I will. I will indeed. I'll still drop knowledge on you on unscheduled days, to ensure things stay unpredictiable, so make sure you come back daily. Hourly is preferable. Hopefully this will keep me writing, keep you reading and we'll all learn something. Well, mostly you, because I'm like, wicked smart.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The Football Gods Kick Massive Ass
First of all, please let me apologize for football having hijacked this site for the past few weeks. It's an exciting time for the Redskins, and as long as they keep winning, I'll keep praising the Football Gods. Personally, I hope it never ends.
Thanks be to the Football Gods, who, in their infinite wisdom, used the Redskins as their instrument to show how offense wins games, but defense wins championships. Granted, we haven't won the championship yet, but with only 120 yards in offense last Saturday, only our defense, or a spectacular miracle were going to let us win that game. I think we got a little of both, as luck was definitely on our side. Now we head to Seattle and face a well rested and pumped up Seattle team. The odds are stacked against us, but I know that the Football Gods will smile upon us and provide ample opportunities to take control. We just have to make the most of those opportunities.
Now that I've given the appropriate thanks and praise to the Football Gods (praise be!), I would like to take this time to address the team. Gather round gentlemen.
I know it's been a long season, and many of you are banged up, tired and running on fumes. Well, I feel for you, I really do, but we're not done yet. In a few weeks you'll have months and months to relax, get healthy again and get your energy back. For now, however, we still have a job to do, and we need to do it better than we've ever done it before.
I don't need to tell you that 120 yards of offense will going to cut it against the Seahawks, but I'm going to anyway. 120 yards will not cut it against the Seahawks. No way, no how. You are on the road, 3000 miles from home, against a team that is well rested, motivated, undefeated at home, and eager to break a twenty-two year long string of lost playoff appearances. If you don't think that string of losses is the biggest motivation for them this week, then you're fooling yourselves. Shaun Alexander is very pround of his MVP award, I"m sure, but I would bet hard cash that he'd give it up in a second to be remembered as the focal point of the offense that broke the post-season losing streak. Do not underestimate their motivation. Add to this a city that gets behind, in full force, whichever pro team of their's is in the playoffs and you face a daunting challenge.
But, just as history is working to keep the Seahawks from advancing, I believe that your history is working to help you advance. There are plenty of players on your squad, and on the Seahawks team, that will end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but you have the advantage of having one man on your squad who already is in the Hall of Fame. That man is Joe Gibbs. Just as you can not underestimate the motivation of the Seahawks, do not underestimate the intangibles that Gibbs brings to your game. I don't have to tell you about how this season has progressed. You lived it. I can tell you that the coaches in the NFL today that could have turned his team around in the manner that Gibbs has done are few and far between. One, Jon Gruden, you beat last week. The other stands on your sidelines every week. Take advantage of his presence and his experience.
I am not going to give the speech that points out how proud you should be despite the outcome. I don't want to give it, and you don't want to hear it. You know, just as I do, that there is only one outcome to this game. Winning. There are no other options, and we will accept no other outcome. Winning truly is the only thing. I will say, however, that you should know how incredibly exciting and fun it has been to be a Redskins fan these past 6 weeks. I'll admit, that, like many fans I'm sure, I was ready to give up on this team once we had gone 5-6. "I"m not wearing their jerseys anymore", I told my friend Mark. I was disgusted and downtrodden, as I'm sure you were. Despite my statements, come Sunday I found I was unable to make good on my promise and I wore the traditional burgundy and gold. Then you won, and won, and kept winning until you brought us here. In looking back, I'm glad I kept my faith, as I know that it wasn't misguided. I'm glad that you kept it too, because without it, we wouldn't be here. Know that we are behind you, the tens of thousands of fans who have waited years to see a team as talented as this one, compete in these games, at this time of year. On Saturday, if the game seems out of your reach, look to your teammates, look to your coaches, look to yourself, your faith, your training, and look to the stands, because even though they may be hard to see, the familiar colors will be there, specks of burgundy and gold in a sea of blue. They are there for you, to support you and revel with you in what we've done this year.
As I said, we're not done yet, not by a long shot. Let's get out there, stick to the plan, execute, tackle and keep these bastards from getting any farther. This is your game. Take it.
Redskins on 3.
1
2
3
REDSKINS!!
Thanks be to the Football Gods, who, in their infinite wisdom, used the Redskins as their instrument to show how offense wins games, but defense wins championships. Granted, we haven't won the championship yet, but with only 120 yards in offense last Saturday, only our defense, or a spectacular miracle were going to let us win that game. I think we got a little of both, as luck was definitely on our side. Now we head to Seattle and face a well rested and pumped up Seattle team. The odds are stacked against us, but I know that the Football Gods will smile upon us and provide ample opportunities to take control. We just have to make the most of those opportunities.
Now that I've given the appropriate thanks and praise to the Football Gods (praise be!), I would like to take this time to address the team. Gather round gentlemen.
I know it's been a long season, and many of you are banged up, tired and running on fumes. Well, I feel for you, I really do, but we're not done yet. In a few weeks you'll have months and months to relax, get healthy again and get your energy back. For now, however, we still have a job to do, and we need to do it better than we've ever done it before.
I don't need to tell you that 120 yards of offense will going to cut it against the Seahawks, but I'm going to anyway. 120 yards will not cut it against the Seahawks. No way, no how. You are on the road, 3000 miles from home, against a team that is well rested, motivated, undefeated at home, and eager to break a twenty-two year long string of lost playoff appearances. If you don't think that string of losses is the biggest motivation for them this week, then you're fooling yourselves. Shaun Alexander is very pround of his MVP award, I"m sure, but I would bet hard cash that he'd give it up in a second to be remembered as the focal point of the offense that broke the post-season losing streak. Do not underestimate their motivation. Add to this a city that gets behind, in full force, whichever pro team of their's is in the playoffs and you face a daunting challenge.
But, just as history is working to keep the Seahawks from advancing, I believe that your history is working to help you advance. There are plenty of players on your squad, and on the Seahawks team, that will end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but you have the advantage of having one man on your squad who already is in the Hall of Fame. That man is Joe Gibbs. Just as you can not underestimate the motivation of the Seahawks, do not underestimate the intangibles that Gibbs brings to your game. I don't have to tell you about how this season has progressed. You lived it. I can tell you that the coaches in the NFL today that could have turned his team around in the manner that Gibbs has done are few and far between. One, Jon Gruden, you beat last week. The other stands on your sidelines every week. Take advantage of his presence and his experience.
I am not going to give the speech that points out how proud you should be despite the outcome. I don't want to give it, and you don't want to hear it. You know, just as I do, that there is only one outcome to this game. Winning. There are no other options, and we will accept no other outcome. Winning truly is the only thing. I will say, however, that you should know how incredibly exciting and fun it has been to be a Redskins fan these past 6 weeks. I'll admit, that, like many fans I'm sure, I was ready to give up on this team once we had gone 5-6. "I"m not wearing their jerseys anymore", I told my friend Mark. I was disgusted and downtrodden, as I'm sure you were. Despite my statements, come Sunday I found I was unable to make good on my promise and I wore the traditional burgundy and gold. Then you won, and won, and kept winning until you brought us here. In looking back, I'm glad I kept my faith, as I know that it wasn't misguided. I'm glad that you kept it too, because without it, we wouldn't be here. Know that we are behind you, the tens of thousands of fans who have waited years to see a team as talented as this one, compete in these games, at this time of year. On Saturday, if the game seems out of your reach, look to your teammates, look to your coaches, look to yourself, your faith, your training, and look to the stands, because even though they may be hard to see, the familiar colors will be there, specks of burgundy and gold in a sea of blue. They are there for you, to support you and revel with you in what we've done this year.
As I said, we're not done yet, not by a long shot. Let's get out there, stick to the plan, execute, tackle and keep these bastards from getting any farther. This is your game. Take it.
Redskins on 3.
1
2
3
REDSKINS!!
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The Football Gods are Generous and Benevolent
Praise be to the Football Gods, for they have delivered us victory over our accursed foes, the Eagles of Philadelphia. Praise be!
Man, what a game that was. I've never been so sick about a game in all of my years of watching football. The first half was torturous to watch, especially considering the fact that Keg and I had a bet, a bet he ultimately lost. On the subject of the bet, I have to give Keg a lot of credit. Many people would hem and haw about having to pay the piper and he held up his end of the bargain with flying colors. Keg, I got yer back brother, and that's for damn sure.
When I was watching the game, I was disgusted to see that Clinton Portis's mother had to be escorted from the stand because some Philly fan was throwing stuff at her. Then I read that she punched said Philly fan in the nose and I laughed and laughed. Now, I'm not one to advocate violence, especially at sporting events when everyone has paid good money to watch the game, support their team and have a good time, but I bet when that Philly fan woke up Sunday morning, the last thing she expected to end the day with was a knuckle sandwich from Clinton Portis's mom.
Now that the dust has settled, we set our sights on Tampa. Ah, Tampa, the site of our last playoff appearance, back when Brad Johnson was throwing the ball for us and we were giddy with playoff fever. Let's hope this game turns out better. Whatever happens, it should be a good game. I'll just have to make sure I keep my mouth shut, as the kids learned a few choice words as they lay snuggled in their beds during the Eagles games. Personally, I think Ben learned to say "What the hell are you doing?", "Goddamn it!" and "Stop fucking committing fucking offside fucking penalties! Fuck! Fuck! Fuckheimer Fuckenstein McFuckyFuck!" from the Wiggles.
Oh, and I won my Vegas Odds Pick'em pool. The Football Gods truly are generous.
Fuck!
Man, what a game that was. I've never been so sick about a game in all of my years of watching football. The first half was torturous to watch, especially considering the fact that Keg and I had a bet, a bet he ultimately lost. On the subject of the bet, I have to give Keg a lot of credit. Many people would hem and haw about having to pay the piper and he held up his end of the bargain with flying colors. Keg, I got yer back brother, and that's for damn sure.
When I was watching the game, I was disgusted to see that Clinton Portis's mother had to be escorted from the stand because some Philly fan was throwing stuff at her. Then I read that she punched said Philly fan in the nose and I laughed and laughed. Now, I'm not one to advocate violence, especially at sporting events when everyone has paid good money to watch the game, support their team and have a good time, but I bet when that Philly fan woke up Sunday morning, the last thing she expected to end the day with was a knuckle sandwich from Clinton Portis's mom.
Now that the dust has settled, we set our sights on Tampa. Ah, Tampa, the site of our last playoff appearance, back when Brad Johnson was throwing the ball for us and we were giddy with playoff fever. Let's hope this game turns out better. Whatever happens, it should be a good game. I'll just have to make sure I keep my mouth shut, as the kids learned a few choice words as they lay snuggled in their beds during the Eagles games. Personally, I think Ben learned to say "What the hell are you doing?", "Goddamn it!" and "Stop fucking committing fucking offside fucking penalties! Fuck! Fuck! Fuckheimer Fuckenstein McFuckyFuck!" from the Wiggles.
Oh, and I won my Vegas Odds Pick'em pool. The Football Gods truly are generous.
Fuck!
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