This Guy is My Hero

Public Service Announcement

It is recommended that all households have smoke detectors but I believe that for homes with small children there needs be an additional kind of an alarm.

The Quiet Detector.

Tonight Anna had a board meeting and needed to work late. After dinner, I surveyed our living room which looked like a Toys R Us had vomited all over; and, being the super-human husband that I am, I decided that it would great if I cleaned the living room and kitchen. Things went pretty well with the living room, since Sophie only pulled out about 75% percent of everything that I just put away. I like to think of cleaning the house as a war of attrition and I only have to outlast Sophie for another 15 years.

So I started on the kitchen. It was at this point that Sophie informed me that she was going to make a bed for Tiger Lily in the Parlor. I thought "Great! Anything to keep her out of my hair while I clean."

This is where a Quiet Detector would have come in very handy. You see, I managed to clean the kitchen, make my self a drink and then turn on the BBC Nightly News, and I still hadn't heard a peep from my daughter.

Obviously, I was suspicious and went to investigate. Sophie had in fact made a bed for Tiger Lily on the coffee table but at some point decided that the cat wasn't feeling well. So being the caring 3 year old that she is, she went and got the Desitin butt cream and applied a very liberal amount deep into the cat's fur. To "Make her feel better," as Sophie put it. Apparently, Wendy-dog wasn't feeling well either, because she also got a dose of butt cream rubbed into her fur.

I have since cleaned the butt cream from the carpet, couch, pillow, blankets and everywhere else that I could think of (not to mention the poor animals' fur).

The moral of the story is, while peace and quiet is what many of us dream of, the consequences of such quiet usually spells trouble.

Hence why our household needs a Quiet Detector.

Smile

I was having crappy day at work and while waiting for Anna I found the following video on my iPhone. It brought a smile to my face and became the 11,239 reason why I love the internet.

Turning Plowshares Into Swords.

Everything is Crystal Clear.

Coming out of the Dungeon.

Over the last ten years a trend has emerged that really gets under my skin.

I am a member (or at least was) of an oppressed minority that over the course of many years co-opted the derogatory term that was used against us as a badge of honor. Life was never easy for us. Unless you were willing to be ridiculed mercilessly, you couldn’t openly ask others if they shared the same interests. The only way to meet others was by collecting phone numbers off the back wall in dimly lit establishments. You then called these strangers and made arrangements to meet at their house. You never knew what you were walking into and more likely than not, they were a little crazy. But you didn’t care. You would do this again and again, because damn it, you needed your fix.

D&D (or more accurately AD&D 1st edition and then 2nd Edition), GURPS, MechWarrior, Call of Cthulhu, Rifts, Vampire, Marvel Superheroes, it didn’t matter. There was something special about sitting around a table with a bunch of guys (because it was always males), collectively telling a story.

We had a our bags of dice, elaborately painted miniatures, shelves upon shelves of books, cases of Mountain Dew, Doritos, pencils, paper and imaginations that could not be contained by the borders of Kentucky.

We were gamers and proud of it. But starting sometime around 2000, people that played video games started calling themselves gamers. I have nothing against video games and enjoy them occasionally but what they were doing and what we were doing weren’t anywhere close the same thing. When you play a role playing game (don’t even get me started on the video games that are classified as an RPG), you are participating in an organic story limited only by the collective imaginations of the people sitting at the table. When you play a video game, you are interacting with a story limited by what the programmer felt important to include.

Both may contain very similar themes, but at their core, the two hobbies could not be further apart. In fact, I could argue that they are the very opposite of each other.

But here we are in the year 2009 and almost exclusively the term “gamer” is used to identify people whose hobby is playing video games. What’s worse is that the role playing industry is moving towards making their games more video game like.

Arrrrgghhhhh!!!!

I know that I don’t have the time, but I really need to make the trek to the Rusty Scabbard, walk to the back wall and tear off the slip of paper with a phone number.

I still have my dice.

Music Meme

There is a meme floating around where you answer a series of questions using the song titles of only one artist. I thought I would give it a try, but I must admit that I have cheated. I choose Jimmy Buffett, which really isn't fair since the man has 8 billion songs. I did challenge myself a little by only using song titles from albums he released in the '70s.

Anyway, here you go.

Pick your Artist
Jimmy Buffett

Are you a male or female?
Son of a Son of a Sailor

Describe yourself.
God’s Own Drunk

How do you feel?
My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don’t Love Jesus

Describe where you currently live.
Found Me a Home

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
He Went To Paris

Your favorite form of transportation.
God Don’t Own a Car

Your best friend is?
A Pirate Looks at Forty

You and your friends are?
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy

What's the weather like?
Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

Favorite time of day?
Livingston Saturday Night

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?
The Wino and I Know

What is life to you?
Stories We Could Tell

Your last relationship?
Treat Her Like A Lady

Your fear?
Nothing Soft About Hard Times

What is the best advice you have to give?
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

Thought for the Day.
Something So Feminine About a Mandolin

How I would like to die?
Defying Gravity

Gather round the fire

It seems that currently the hip meme running through the blogging world is telling ghost stories. It all started with Stephanie’s very good post about an experience she had in Amsterdam. From there it spread like wildfire and you can find other stories here, here, here and here.

For me personally, I am a little confused on the subject. On one hand, my favorite column in Scientific American is Michael Shermer’s Skeptic. I try to be a pragmatist and think rationally on subjects that on the surface seem to defy a rationale explanation. However, on the other hand, I have had some really really weird things happen to me in my life that I can’t explain in a satisfactory manner.

I am not going to tell you any of the stories that have happened to only me because, while I don’t think it is the case, there is always the possibility that I am simply bat-shit crazy. I might be so freaking insane that my memories are complete bunk and my mind has somehow created these vivid memories.

So no, the story I am going to tell is one where there was another eye witness.

Before we begin, let me give you a little background. The other person present was my friend Jeff. While I don’t remember exactly how old we were, it certainly happened more than 15 years ago. Neither one of us liked to talk about this event. Especially if the other was present. I can’t really explain it, but it seems “wrong” to discuss the event together. Even now, typing this after more than 15 years, I feel a little paranoid. It is almost like I am experiencing the beginnings of a panic attack. I know that Jeff has already written about this story on his blog, but I have never read it. I just can’t do it. My wife has told me that his account is very similar to my account, but I am not going to go read it.

Anyway, here is the story.

One the best things about growing up in my neighborhood were all of the friends that were the same age. There wasn’t a square inch of that neighborhood that we hadn’t explored to the depth of detail that only youth permits. One of our favorite activities was spending the night at each others houses and then slipping out very late. We never really did anything bad. Just boys being boys.

On this particular evening, I was spending the night at Jeff’s house. Jeff and I lived in what we boys called the “new section” of the neighborhood. When my grandmother developed the neighborhood, she created three different phases. The first phase was the “old section”, the second was the “new section” and the third was a section that had not been developed yet.

Right in between the new section and the old section was a lake. This was a man-made lake created when a dam had been built in a deep valley. The quickest route for us boys to travel from one section of the neighborhood to the other was by walking along a path that went down into this valley on one side of the dam. The entire path was maybe ¼ of a mile long, at most. While fairly short, this area could be pretty spooky because fog coming off of the lake would settle into this valley and on one side of the bath was the foundation of an old pig slaughtering facility.

This evening though there was nothing really spooky about the area. We had spent most of the night in the old section of the neighborhood with friends. At about 3 or 4 in the morning, we were headed back to Jeff’s house. When you are heading to the new section from the old section, you walk down a nice wide road until it dead ends. When you reach the dead end, you take a sharp right next to this nice elderly couple’s house and start descending down the path into the valley.

We made our turn and were walking about 150 feet from the large triple car garage door of this elderly couple’s house, when suddenly the very bright light over the garage door came on and the garage door started to open.

Doing what boys do best, we ran. Immediately upon realizing the door was opening we turned 180 degrees from the door and started running into the empty field. And this is where things turned weird.

When we were about 300 feet from the garage door, both Jeff and I fell, face first. Somehow, and I have no idea how, we were then lying in the grass facing the garage door. We should have been facing the opposite direction when we fell, but we weren’t.

I can’t speak for Jeff, but from this point on, I will be telling you what I saw.

I am lying in the grass looking at this open garage with a large bright light illuminating the driveway, when what appeared to be about 25 to 30 “little kids” emerged from the garage. We weren’t that far away, but these kids looked blurry. They all were wearing some kind of grey jumper. These kids were running around in the middle of the driveway very fast, jumping up and down and making little squeaking noises. For some reason, I then and still to this day, want to call these kids German. They didn’t speak German and they were not wearing lederhosen but for some reason I want to call them German.

These kids continued to run around, jumping and making their little squeaks for about 2 minutes then suddenly they all ran back into the garage, the door shut and the light went out. I then remember Jeff and me standing up, looking at each other but not saying a single word. Then the next thing I knew, we were both lying in Jeff’s bed. I have no memory of walking back to Jeff’s house. I just remember lying in the bed and going immediately to sleep.

The next morning, I got up, maybe said bye to Jeff and went home. Each of us told friends about the story but for some reason could not talk about it to each other. It was years and years before either of us would even briefly mention it if the other was present.

In case you are interested, here is Jeff’s take on the event.

But I still won’t read it.

Enjoy this brief intermission

I know the blog has been dead for a while.

Sorry.

In the mean time, enjoy this simple little Quidditch game I made in Scratch.

There are some bugs but since I have only about 4 hours (I thought it was about 2.5 but Anna told me it was 4) of work into the game, I am happy with the result so far.

Arrow keys control your Chaser and the Spacebar shoots the Quaffle when you are in the scoring zone (about the quarter of the screen close to the Rings).


Learn more about this project

The Bell Curve of Complexity

I have been thinking a lot about complexity lately. We live our lives constantly interacting with different systems of varying complexity and scale. These systems are nestled like Russian nesting dolls inside of, and making up, countless other systems. In Gödel Escher Bach, Hofstadter argues that our souls are the result of unimaginably large self-referential systems that fold back upon themselves (which book, I might add, has the most profound things to say on the nature of intelligence that I have ever read).

You can’t delve too deep in the rabbit hole that is looking at the world as an infinite series of systems, for that way lies madness. Or enlightenment. I don’t know which, but both are dangerous. I do think it is good to periodically stop and ponder on how large a role complexity plays in our lives.

I read an article today about a man that has just finished building an 8-bit CPU by hand. His CPU is the equivalent of an Apple IIe or a Commodore 64 (the picture to the left is of his CPU). For most people a computer is the magic box that sends email, surfs the web, balances their checkbook, etc. The more you learn about computers, the greater their complexity grows. Computers become far more complex if you know a little programming. But at some point as your knowledge of a system grows, the complexity of said system starts to decrease.

“Computers can seem like complete black boxes. We understand what they do, but not how they do it, really,” says Chamberlin, the guy that built the CPU. “When I was finally able to mentally connect the dots all the way from the physics of a transistor up to a functioning computer, it was an incredible thrill.”

I am seeing a similar realization in my own life. The primary reason I have been neglecting this blog is because I have been neck deep in planning the Bluegrass Festival. This will be the 36^th year for the festival, which means that I have been a part of this festival since I have been alive (including in the womb). My earliest memories of the bluegrass festival are winning prizes at the vendor that sold kid’s trinkets, the sofas and recliners that were hoisted into the gigantic oak trees at people’s campsites and being shooed out of the store because I was always underfoot.

As I got older, the festival grew in my eyes. I started selling t-shirts at the store and ice off the back of a golf cart. Backstage seemed like a place that I wanted to be, even though I had no business being there. When I turned 12, my friends and I started camping, which made the festival grow by at least an order of magnitude. Suddenly, there were other campsites that we could visit (or at least spy on), beer to sneak out of coolers, tents to pitch and campfires to start. Move forward a few years and you add working gates shifts, organizing the schedules of friends to work, building overly elaborate kitchen areas, etc.

Over the last couple of years, I have been trying to help my grandmother out by taking some of the planning off of her shoulders. The complexity of the festival as an organism in my mind has grown larger than any of the previous jumps. I never imagined the scale of “stuff” involved in planning such a large event.

Here’s the thing though. I think I have reached some kind of plateau where I am realizing that no other person, besides my grandmother, knows the level of detail and complexity of this event but at the same time it is becoming simpler. It is hard to describe but, if I didn’t know better, I would swear that I can hear the heartbeat of the festival. At minimum, I have at least a small understanding of what the CPU guy was talking about when he said it was a thrill to connect the mental dots.

I believe it is good for the soul to understand something so well that its complexity is stripped away not because you have removed its components but because you see it as a whole.

Of course it is far more likely that I just need to eat my bowl of Wheaties in the morning.

I'm Lazy. So What?

I still have not been able to find the mental energy to compose a decent blog post. A Bluegrass Festival won't plan itself you know.

Anyway, being the nice guy that I am, I have ran a couple of filters in Google Analytics and had it spit out a list of the most popular blog posts. So, I thought I would give you a trip down memory lane and write a blog post in which I simply link to my own blog posts.

(I am very aware of how egotistical this is)

Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool

This is the most popular post on my entire blog. My only guess is that many poor saps think they are going to find the lyrics to the Fresh Prince.

Shit.

Kid Nation of Capitalistic Pigs

An Anthropolgical Study of Parents.

Death Match to the Extreme!!!!

By the Power of Rationalization!

Quack, Quack, Quack.

Weapon of Mash-Destruction.

The Return of the Comic

Still Without A Name Comic 2

We are an Honorable Band of Thieves

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in D&D.

The White Man's Burden.

I plead guilty to treason.

I know that I have been remiss in my civic duties to the Republic of Blogmoria. As soon as I created the fancy new banner for this blog, I immediately fell off the wagon and ceased publishing the thoughtful and illuminating posts you have all come to love.

I have a really good excuse though. You see, I downloaded this new app for my iPhone called ‘stachtastic that allows you to add a mustache and beard to the faces of people. My favorite is the one called Osamabin’stachin. It has become a real problem. I find myself spending every waking moment (and the damn app has made these far outnumber the sleeping moments) adding humorous mustaches to peoples’ faces. My fingers have developed quite impressive calluses and gained so much muscle mass that they now resemble jumbo hotdogs from using the touchscreen.

This addiction has resulted in more than just physical deformities. My internet routine has significantly suffered as a result. I just checked Google Reader and it gives the cryptic number of unread posts as 1000+. This number is a gross underrepresentation of how bad it has gotten. The subcategory of Apple has 985 unread posts, Geeky has 1000+ unread posts, Politics is 840, Science 1000+, etc. Hell, I have 913 unread articles from the BBC alone.

Damn you ‘stachtastic!!! I am not sleeping, or eating, or bathing, and systematically you are ruining my life by leaving me no free time to do anything, much less think about a blog post.

Oh, and I guess working on the bluegrass festival has contributed some to my lack of Internet participation.

Big Blue Nation

With the recent announcement of Calipari as the new coach of my beloved Kentucky Wildcats, there has been an resurgence of the myth in the national media that Kentucky fans are too extreme and out of touch with reality. The myth states that we ran Tubby out of town because the entire fan base hated the man for not winning 10 national championships. I don't believe this myth is true. When Tubby left most people I know were upset that he left. Most people I know thought that Gillespie deserved more time. I am telling you, the vast majority of Kentucky fans are rationale human beings with realistic expectations for their program.

However, I do think I know why this myth keeps being retold and I have numbers to prove it. Rivals is the largest college basketball website out there and has a fan forum for each NCAA team. It also happens to be the place where the pundits pull quotes from "crazy Kentucky fans". One handy metric is that each of the forums have at the top of the page a counter which lists the record for the number of fans visiting its forum at one time. I don't think it is too far a stretch to suggest that a fan that creates an account and logs in to a basketball forum is a "hardcore" fan. Most people watch the team on TV and maybe wear a hat with the logo; but, most aren't logging into an online forum to follow the latest rumors.

So lets take a look at the most people logged into the rivals forum for some of college's elite programs.

Duke 1218
North Carolina 1885
UConn 305
Florida (They don't even have a basketball forum, just football and "Other Sports")
Kansas 383
Michigan State 1039
Arizona 641
Maryland 727
Syracuse 1101

Now let's look at Kentucky's record.

Kentucky 22215

You read that right. Twenty-two Thousand Two Hundred Fifteen. So, for our experiment, lets say that one percent of these "hardcore" fans are complete whack jobs. The kind of nuts that need psychiatric help and will say truly outlandish stuff. If you are Duke, you have 1.2 nuts, North Carolina 1.8, etc. However, Kentucky would have 222 of these nuts saying crazy things. So when you hear ESPN read these outlandish comments, keep in mind that they don't represent the entire fan base, it just seems like we have more of them, because there are more UK fans.

I FEEL LIKE I'M FIXIN' TO DIE

Well come on all of you big strong men,

Uncle Sam needs your help again,

He got himself in a terrible jam,

Way down yonder with Taliban,

Put down your books and pick up a gun,

We're gonna have a whole lotta fun

And its 1,2,3 what are we fighting for?

Don't ask me I don't give a damn,

The next stop is Pakistan,

And its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates,

Well there ain't no time to wonder why,

WHOOPEE we're all gonna die

Well come on wall street don't be slow,

Why man this is war go go go,

There's plenty good money to be made,

By supplying the army with the tools of the trade,

Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb

They don’t drop it wrong.

And its 1,2,3 what are we fighting for?

Don't ask me I don't give a damn,

The next stop is Pakistan,

And its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates,

Well there ain't no time to wonder why,

WHOOPEE we're all gonna die

Well come on generals let's move fast,

Your big chance is come at last,

Gotta go out and get those arabs,

The only good muslim is one that's dead,

And you know that peace can only be won,

When you blow them all to kingdom come

And its 1,2,3 what are we fighting for?

Don't ask me I don't give a damn,

The next stop is Pakistan,

And its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates,

Well there ain't no time to wonder why,

WHOOPEE we're all gonna die

Well come on mothers across the land,

Pack your boys off to Pakistan,

Come on fathers don't hesitate,

Send your sons off before its too late,

Be the first one on your block,

To have your boy come home in a box

And its 1,2,3 what are we fighting for?

Don't ask me I don't give a damn,

The next stop is Pakistan,

And its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates,

Well there ain't no time to wonder why,

WHOOPEE we're all gonna die

Well it is official. President Obama has announced that we are officially at war in Pakistan and not just sending drones across the border to blow the hell out of them. WHOOPEE.

Ohh, and the above picture is not photoshopped. It really is one of the Taliban's leaders talking to Wired about how he is addicted to his iPhone.

NERDS RULE!!!!

I just would like to take this moment to say that NERDS RULE!! The Woz received the lowest judges score for the last six years on Dancing With The Stars, yet after viewer votes are added, he ended up in the top 4.

What else did you expect when you use telecom lines and the internet for your voting? The other contestants are doing battle on our turf.

It is all a Pinko plot.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! It looks like DRM not only punishes us average law abiding citizens but affects political leaders too.

In case you missed the news, when Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his first visit to the White House he presented President Obama with an ornamental pen holder made from the wood of the sister ship that provided the wood for the Oval Office desk and a first-edition set of a seven-volume biography about Winston Churchill. A pretty cool and thoughtful gift.

President Obama gave PM Brown a 25 disk set of classic American movies. The kind you see in the clearance bin at Best Buy. The English people were pretty upset and thought it was a snub by the White House. Personally I think Obama is a terrible gift giver.

However, the story gets much better. Apparently, the White House bought Region 1 DVDs and not Region 2 DVDs. All DVDs are encoded with a DRM scheme to allow them to only be played on DVD players from the region in which they are bought. So PM Brown is forced to either throw the presidential gift of DVDs into the trash OR become a law-breaking pirate if it wants to watch them.

When will the world wake up and realize that DRM is stupid and only handcuffs the good guys?

Take On Me.

Rome is Burning.

On Friday I sent out a text message to some friends that said “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no NIT,” but the truth is that I do fear the NIT. Since I was Sophie’s age, the University of Kentucky has always made the NCAA tournament (except for those years that an express mail package busts open filled with cash). To say that I feel adrift is an understatement. Being a Kentucky basketball fan is more than simply cheering the local squad. In many ways it a defining quality of what it is to be a Kentuckian. And right now, the program is separating the men from the assholes.

My fear of the NIT is that if we do very well, it will be akin to a 19 year old beating up a 7th grader at the playground. And if we suck…. well, I don’t really want to think about that. My fear was compounded yesterday when the NIT bracket was released and we received a 4 seed. You read that correctly, the storied Kentucky basketball program received a 4 seed in the NIT.

As I made clear in my earlier post, I am not advocating that we publically lynch Coach Gillespie. Ignoring the fact that we need to give the coach more than two years, it would be very counter-productive to the program to fire a coach after the team achieved a winning season. Simply having more wins than loses is not acceptable; but, it could have been worse.

So I sit in the middle of March with nothing to do. I could watch and enjoy the NCAA tournament even though my team isn’t playing but it seems weird. I am sure that many of you do this (I am looking at you South Dakota readers) but part of me feels like I should give up on the tournament as a sort of punishment. Yes, I realize how stupid that sounds.

Before anyone suggests that I support one of the other three Kentucky teams in the tournament, I plan on doing just this (even Louisville but I am gritting my teeth).

So what else happens in March?

The White Man's Burden.

Here in Kentucky the weather is finally starting to turn warm for stretches longer than 8.6 seconds and with it comes my annual lamenting of the fact that society has failed men. Sunshine, warm temperatures and birds singing are nice but this move away from winter always disrupts my life. The kids love playing in the park and my wife enjoys opening all of the windows. You see people on the street smiling but in the back of my mind I am stressing over what the hell I am going to do with all of my crap.

I am something of a packrat and winter plays very well with this quirk. My winter coat (which incidentally by calling it a “winter coat” would bring howls of laughter from our northern friends) is blessed with 6 very large and deep pockets. These pockets are filled with various bits and allows me to become a walking Home Depot.

So what am I to do? Seinfeld, if it has taught us nothing, has taught us that no matter how hard you believe, a European Carry-All will never be anything but a purse. I am comfortable enough in my manhood to wear pink shirts to work, but I draw the line at walking around with a purse. Over the years I have thought of a few alternatives but each has their own drawbacks.

1. The Fishing Vest. At first glance this appears to be the perfect substitute for my winter coat. Even more pockets, light weight and comfortable. For weekends this would be a perfect solution. The problem arises during the work week. I wear a dress shirt and tie everyday to work and in my mind’s eye the fishing vest just doesn’t go with dress clothes. In fact it strikes me as something the Unabomber would wear. Nothing screams unhinged like dress clothes and a ratty fishing vest loaded with shit.
   
   

2. A briefcase. During the workweek a briefcase would be an adequate solution even though I would hate carrying the thing. However, all of my non-work clothes were purchased circa 1994 and have a distinctly out of date grunge look. I think I would rather walk around with a purse than look like a wanker wearing worn out jeans, t-shirt, flannel shirt and briefcase. This is the kind of person that would be beaten in the street by Pixie fans.


3. A Backpack. A backpack has all of the advantages of a briefcase plus the benefit of not having to carry it. I hate the idea of lugging the thing around but it would work. The biggest disadvantage of the backpack is my vanity. I am 31 years old and having a backpack slung over your shoulder strikes me as something for much younger people. Not sure why, but to me using a backpack for everyday use just seems like something you should leave behind in your twenties.


4. A Sherpa. Hiring a Sherpa to lug all of my crap would work, but my car is pretty small as it is and I don’t really have room for another person. That and a white guy hiring an ethnic minority as a personal servant to follow them around everywhere doesn’t seem like such a good idea.


5. A Pack Mule. Again, this would work but I think my office would not appreciate a mule defecating on the floor in my office.

Society has failed men by not providing us with a social appropriate storage device. A Bag of Holding (or for you non-D&Ders, a bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm like Hermione’s) would work but despite my silent prayers each night, magic doesn’t seem to actually exist.

1-800-HELP-ME

This morning I feel like a woman that is continuously beat up by her man but keeps returning to him time after time. I want to make excuses for his sorry behavior. He will change. This time is different. It is my fault, as I was just too hard on him and put too much pressure on him. He loves me. He really does. You people just don’t understand.

I AM still making excuses and defending him, but… Georgia. I mean really…Georgia. We have arguably two of the top three best players in the SEC but we lose to…. Georgia.

Anyone know of a local shelter for abused basketball fans?

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in D&D.

This may come as quite a shock to many of my readers, but I am a nerd and have been one for quite some time. While it isn’t entirely clear exactly when I underwent this metamorphosis, my best guess is that it was sometime during the second trimester, which interestingly enough, was about the same time my mother attended a KISS concert with me in the womb. My specific taxonomic classification would have me placed within the Phylum of Escapist and further classified within the Class of Role-Player/Comic Book Geek.

Since I have never really been cured of this affliction (despite the fact that I somehow ended up marrying such a hottie), I have been playing D&D with Riley and my cousin Paul (who is much closer in age to Riley than to me). During these sessions I have subconsciously found myself imparting life lessons upon the boys.

I am currently playing a Halfling Rogue whose personality is patterned on Bernie Maddoff. As such, I have convinced Riley and Paul to “invest” their gold into my “sure-fire” investment strategy. At level 1 they have already given me most of their gold and I convinced them that the best way for them to maximize the return on their investment is to recruit more investors. During the same session, our DM, Brett convinced Paul to purchase the extended warranty on a sword he purchased at the market.

These sessions have got me thinking and I quickly came to the realization that D&D has taught me several important aspects to life. Here are just a few.

1. Check for Traps. It is the wise player that when entering into an unfamiliar room within a dungeon or opening a chest filled with treasure, first stops and searches for traps. This is good advice. Unknown situations can harbor all kinds of dangers and it is common sense to “look before you leap”, be it kicking in a door to rescue the princess or buying a used car. Anyone know the challenge rating of used car salesmen?


2. Adventuring with Idiots. I can’t count the number of times that my adventuring party was slaughtered because of some asinine action on the part of another player. Just because it was your friend that was the idiot doesn’t mean that you are going to be immune from the consequences. This is particularly important when you are forced to make constitution checks due to the imbibing of alcohol.


3. Know your Foe. If you find yourself in a battle with a Wraith and have never learned that non-magical weapons will have no effect, then you are going to die very fast. Whatever you are trying to accomplish in life, it is important to be as informed as possible. That and bringing your towel.


4. Run Away!! Run Away!! Just like King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, when faced with challenge beyond your level (e.g. the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog) the best course of action is to run away. Yeah, the girl is cute, but you have been slapped five times in a row. Run Away!! Run Away!!


5. Grimoire of Big Booms. Quick!! Which is most likely to do more damage, rolling 1d12 or 1d8+4? Sometimes it seems that an advanced degree in mathematics is required to complete a single round of combat in D&D. In reality, the complex number-crunching of your average min-maxer has applications in everyday life. OK, maybe not, but I would like to think that all of that number crunching has made me slightly better at math.
   


6. Negotiating with Gods. In every role players life there will arise a situation where you need to make a wish. To most folks being grated a wish would be a wonderful gift. To a role player it means that you need to spend hours drafting an air tight verbal contract in a Faustian attempt to close all possible loopholes. And you will fail. No matter how hard you try, your DM is going to find a loophole in your wish and make you pay for not having an army of lawyers on retainer. Personally I would rather fight the Tarrasque than wish for a new pair of socks.

You always hear people say that playing sports builds character and prepares children for life. While this may be true to a point, nothing prepares our sons and daughters for the spiked pits and conning NPC's of life like D&D.

I Am Lord Richardson!

I feel the need to warn the world about a potential threat to our very existence. I suspect that former Governor Bill Richardson may in fact be Lord Voldemort.

Anna has been listening to the Harry Potter books on CD while doing such mundane activities as fixing dinner, cleaning the house, caring for our children, etc., and while she listens to the books I do productive things like sit on my skinny ass and play poker on the iPhone. It was while listening to the books that I have come to the horrifying realization that Bill Richardson is Lord Voldemort.

As as I am sure you are aware, Pres. Obama first picked Richardson to be Secretary of Commerce but a silly grand jury got in the way when it indicted him for breaking campaign finance laws. At this point, Lord Richardson could no longer be the Commerce Secretary and Head Master Obama was forced to find another individual for the post. If you have been following the news, you are also aware that this has been a very difficult task. Obama is now on his third nomination for the post and the newest pick is having troubles.

Does this sound familiar? Of course it does. We all know that Lord Voldemort wanted to be the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts and when he was refused the post, he placed a curse upon same and no one else was able to hold the position for more than a year. It now looks like the same curse has been placed on the Secretary of Commerce.

Obviously, muggles would never make this connection; therefore, it is up to Harry Potter fans to spread the word. I keep hearing Sean Hannity refer to Pres. Obama as "The Chosen One", so we must do everything we can to help him locate and destroy Lord Richardson's horcruxes. I considered editing Bill Richardson's wikipedia page to warn the world about his true identity but Lord Richardson has probably put the moderators of Wikipedia under the Imperious Curse and I don't want to have my wikipedia account banned because then I wouldn't be able to warn the world about the alien lizard people living in underground government bunkers that are secretly controlling the Illuminati.

An Anthropolgical Study of Parents.

Tonight Pres. Obama will deliver his not-quite State of the Union address but it seems that few people are paying much attention to this speech. My best guess is that the Union is in a state of shock and nobody wants to hear how crappy things have gotten. So I am going to jump on the bandwagon and ignore it as well.

I have been meaning to write this post for some time (I had an earlier draft written about six months ago) but never got around to finishing. What is the topic that I want to discuss? The changes that having a small child brings about in otherwise normal adults.

Let us examine some of the behavior that I have observed in Anna and I.

1. You clap and celebrate such amazingly spectacular events like a character in a television show singing a song. Or putting on pants. Or pooping in a toilet. These events produce an applause usually reserved for rock stars, but Goofy can receive a standing ovation for saying “Garsh!” So can Mommy.

2. Once 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, drinking mimosas, four star hotels and the like were considered the height of luxury but now being able to finish a meal is a luxury seemingly only reserved for royalty.

3. Our bathtub has become a repository for toys and a canvas for graffiti.

4. Due to the evil manipulations of Elmo and his kin, we now normally refer to ourselves in the third person. Daddy is going to work. Mommy loves Sophie. Not entirely sure what psychological ramifications exist because of this behavior; but, they can’t be good.

5. When trying to teach your small child things like doing somersaults, you do things with your body that should have been forgotten years ago. Seriously, they are a bad idea.

6. Going to bed at 9:00 seems like a really good idea.

7. The idea of finding ourselves without any orange juice in the house gives me cold chills.

8. Going to the grocery store requires outfitting yourself like a Sherpa scaling Everest, complete with bags, provisions and spare supplies.

9. Duct Tape once was the tool that could solve almost any problem but it has been replaced by the band-aid. Scrapped your knee. Here is a band-aid. Bumped your head. Here is a band-aid. Your tummy is sore. Here is a band-aid. The Wildcats lost three games in a row. Here is a band-aid.

I would love to hear any other anthropological changes that you have observed in either yourself or others because of the addition of small children.

EDIT: OK, some people are thinking about the speech. Read this excellent piece by George Lakoff via Fivethirtyeight. Really, go read it. It is good.

The Perfect Cheeseburger.

My wife makes the perfect cheeseburgers.



Half a pound of beef, cheese, lettuce, bacon, caramelized onions and a fried egg.

One step removed from Nirvana.

Buckle Up!! It is going to be one hell of a ride.

A couple of days ago I mentioned in passing the possibility that we are approaching the singularity. It was one of those throw-away words that I didn’t give much thought and as consequence I have heard others mention it numerous times since I wrote that post.

For those of you not up on your futurism and/or science fiction (some would claim they are the one and the same) let me give you a little primer. The singularity is a theoretical point in the future wherein technology advances to such a degree that we experience an unprecedented burst of innovation and advancement. The theory is that once we have machines that achieve near-human intelligence, those same machines will be able to design even more intelligent machines, which design even more intelligent machines, and … well you get the idea. While the rise of intelligent machines is the first domino, intelligent machines alone don’t bring about the singularity. E.O. Wilson in his wonderful book Consilience argues that Science is advancing to the point where we are approaching a unity of knowledge.

This isn’t some crazy notion concocted by a bunch of sci-fi nerds, but is a theory supported by some of the brightest minds in the world. Carl Sagan believed that we would be approaching the singularity by 2030. Ray Kurzweil has basically devoted his life to the idea and made it his goal to live long enough to witness such. Even business people like Jack Welch and Bill Gates are saying it is inevitable. Google and NASA have partnered to create a think-tank devoted entirely to the subject.

So what does the singularity mean for you and me? Nobody knows and that is the whole point. We are talking about such a rapid change in both technology and society that predictions would be impossible. We are talking about a change so great that a good analogy would be like taking a person from the year 1000 and dropping them in the middle of 2009, except we would have change that drastic every 10 to 20 years. Our dreams of flying cars and Rosie the Robot may seem quaint within our lifetime. Kurzweil wrote in 2001: “The Singularity is technological change so rapid and so profound that it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. Some would say that we cannot comprehend the Singularity, at least with our current level of understanding, and that it is impossible, therefore, to look past its "event horizon" and make sense of what lies beyond.”

Do I have anything interesting to say on this subject? No, not really. For those worried about being able to adapt I don’t really have any advice except to read more science fiction. Those sci-fi nerds may just be your best bet for being able to adapt to whatever new paradigm is over the horizon.

Happy B-Day Old Man!!!

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!!

One of my many, varied, nuanced and irrationally passionate pet-peeves are the idiots (and yes you are an idiot if you have drank this particular brand of Kool-Aid) who believe (yes I am using the word believe) in Intelligent Design. It really gets my blood boiling because of their insistence in wrapping their particular pile of dog shit in scientific mumbo-jumbo and passing it off as Science. If these nut-jobs stopped there it wouldn’t be so bad because the peer-review process of modern science would weed these kooks out; but, they use the levers of democracy to try and out flank real science by inserting their poison into public schools.

Ok, the point of this post isn’t to rail against modern day “Earth is flat” morons, but to celebrate Darwin and his contribution to our understanding of how the universe works. Most people know that Evolution and its underpinning description of reality that is Natural Selection is the foundation for modern Biology; however, his theories have profoundly “evolved” many branches of science. One example that I have learned about (thanks Scientific American) is Superorganism Dynamics. My feeble amateur explanation would be to describe it as the evolutionary process happening on a macro-scale. Think of a colony of ants evolving as if it was a single organism. The interesting part is that this has implications for very non-biological systems as well. The same rules seem to apply to traffic patterns and how memes spread through the internet.

Cultural evolution and the study of the evolutionary processes that accompany human language are two more areas where evolution has had a profound impact on non-biological areas of study. My point is that Charles Darwin’s theories have had a more profound impact on our understanding than any other individual since Aristotle. And since it was nearly 2000 years before Aristotle’s ideas began to really blossom and move us exponentially forward, I think that we haven’t even scratched the surface of the impact of Mr. Darwin’s theories.

200 years ago today Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born. If you know me at all, you know that I am a huge Lincoln fan; but, Pres. Lincoln doesn’t hold a candle to the impact upon the world that Charles Darwin has had.

Take a moment and raise a glass to Darwin.

EDIT: If I have offended you with this post, sorry. I am not really sorry but I felt like I should apologize just the same.

The Man kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank!

Obama has been President exactly three weeks and in that time he has accomplished quite a bit that I can be proud of. He has ordered a suspension of the "trials" for Guantanamo prisoners, refunded stem cell research, signed an executive order making it clear that we will not torture, signed the fair pay act, ordered the DEA to stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries, thereby ending the stupid constitutional conflict between the Feds and the States, and many other things.

There is one thing that President Obama has done that I don't agree with and think is very counter-productive. Mere days after being sworn into office, he authorized an attack on the tribal region of Pakistan using unmanned drones.

I am not arguing that these attacks were bad from my position as a pacifist; but rather, from the pragmatic position that these attacks actually hurt our mission in the area. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and tops the list (along with Mexico, believe it or not) of nations most likely to suffer a complete collapse of government. To the people of these tribal regions, unmanned drone attacks are the cowards way of fighting a war and help foster hostility towards the US and by extension the existing Pakistani government.

Obviously, sending manned bombers increases the risk to soldiers lives; but, war shouldn't be easy. When fighting a war (or playing a game of chess) you have to keep your ultimate objective in mind when making any move. The use of unmanned drones might kill the target you are looking for; but, if doing so increases the number of radicals and further destabilizes the Pakistani government, then you are winning the battle while losing the war.

War is a dirty, nasty, messy (and yes, evil) enterprise; but, I shudder to think that we as a nation might arrive at a day where we can wage a war without risk to American lives. It seems to me that one of the last checks on America's military power is the public's aversion to body bags.

So in short, unmanned drones are bad, not only because they undermine your primary objective, but also because they give the untruthful impression that they are without cost.

Would you like the Red Pill?

Do you hear that? That sound of breaking glass is human’s place as the smartest creature on the planet being shattered. IBM has just announced that the Department of Energy has placed an order for a computer to be installed in 2012 that will process 20 petaflops a second. This is pretty remarkable because it has been less than a year since we built the first computer that can do 1 petaflop a second.

Estimates of the computation power of the average human brain ranges from 10 petaflops to 1000 petaflops. So Sequoia, the name of the new computer, will be the first machine ever built that has the possibility of equaling a human brain in terms of raw computational power. Obviously the human mind is a complex machine that very well may be far more than raw computational power; however, the truth is that we don’t really know if there is more to it than raw power. But we are about to find out. Even if the computational power of the human brain is more in the 1000 petaflop range, we should be able to reach it in five years or so.

In addition, if the laws of diminishing cost continue to hold, you should be able to buy a computer with the same computational power for about $1,000 in less than 10 years. At that point, we should be only a few years away from building a computer that will have the computational power of every human mind on the planet combined.

What does all of this mean? I could get all Ray Kurzweil on you and start talking about the singularity (although Google and NASA believe in the singularity enough that they just announced that they are partnering on a research facility dedicated to it) but I think at the least, we are about to find out if consciousness is truly “unique”.

So, do you want the Red Pill or the Blue Pill? You may have to decide sooner than you think.

Escape to Neverland

It has been an interesting week. Once the envy of the world, Iceland's economy is now on the fast track to being one of the world's worst. Mogadishu is collapsing. Renewed violence in Gaza. Not to mention the "greatest natural disaster" to ever strike Kentucky. At least according to our governor.



However that is not a mountain of snow, it is beautiful white sand in Florida. While my beautiful Commonwealth was being battered by snow and ice, the family and I packed up to worship the Corporate Mouse.



The weather was about 80 and sunny all week. We went swimming and relaxed at the resort. Here is the view from our balcony.



The kids had a blast.





Disney World is a huge place and the attractions are numerous and varied; but, I think these last two pictures of Dumbo and Sophie sitting in Pluto's house, sum up the vacation very well.





A week in the sun and warmth while not reading the news has been very good for the soul. Alright, I had better go and call an electrical contractor to fix the storm damage and then take apart the toliet. Too bad the magic couldn't follow us north.

Holy Frak!!! Time to Place Your Bets.

Alright toaster-lovers, this is your last chance to state for the record who you think is the final Cylon.

I am 85% sure of my guess but I will post it in the comment section in case anyone doesn't want to hear people's theories.

Time to put your reputation on the line.

WHO IS THE FINAL CYLON?

Are you chicken?

A New Tradition Is Born

Growing up in the Commonwealth of Kentucky there are certain things that seep into your consciousness. One of those tidbits of Kentucky Basketball knowledge is that Dan Issel was the man. Since he played for Kentucky from 1966 to 1970, obviously I never saw him play but growing up here you knew the name. You also knew that his 53 points scored in a single game was one of those records that would probably never be broken in the modern era. A holdover, if you will, of a simpler time. So the name of Dan Issel was kept alive down generations of Kentucky Wildcat fans that had no direct knowledge of his skill.

My children and grandchildren will know a different name.

That name is Jodie Meeks.

Last night Jodie Meeks scored 54 points against Tennessee on the Volunteers home court. This was not a game that I believe many pragmatic Kentucky fans thought we would win.

Not only did we win; but Jodie Meeks put on the most impressive display of basketball prowess I have ever seen.

Congratulations Jodie. You have now become a legend. And I am thankful that I was a witness.

HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU!!!!!

On a Disney forum that I frequent in order to plan our upcoming trip, there is an area for discussions of any kind. Currently there is a thread wherein a bunch of conservatives are scared to death that once Obama takes office, gas is going to sky rocket to over $7 a gallon. So I thought I would take advantage of the situation and make them an offer they can't refuse. Here it is.

For those of you worried that gas will hit $7 a gallon once Obama is sworn in, HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU!!!!!!

Between now and January 15 (going to Disney so that will be the deadline) I will sell you credits for gasoline at the reasonable price of only $5 A GALLON!!!!! So when gas rockets up to over $7 a gallon, you can be comfortable in knowing that you locked them in for the bargain basement price of ONLY $5 A GALLON!!!!!.

I will draw up a contract wherein you send me any receipts for gas between January 20 and January 31, and I will reimburse you whatever it is you had to pay up to the number of credits you purchase.

Remember this is a limited time offer, SO YOU NEED TO ACT NOW!!!

BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!!! If you purchase at least 1000 gallon credits, I will throw in for no charge, a time share interest in the historic Brooklyn Bridge. You read that right, for each 1000 gallon credits you purchase, you will receive a 1% ownership stake in this world renowned landmark. BUT HURRY!!! These timeshare credits will go fast!

BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!!! For the first five customers, we are offering for the bargain rate of $1000 an acre, your very own PIECE OF THE MOON!!! You heard that right. For a mere $1000 an acre, our real estate department will deed you a prime location upon the Moon. But this offer is limited to the first five customers.

Send me a private message NOW!!!! Operators are standing by.

We will see if I have any takers.

I am a sore loser. So what?

While watching the Kentucky-Louisville game tonight I noticed someone wearing the t-shirt you see below. Pay particular attention to the typo.


I took the liberty of fixing it for him.