Friday Post

Last night I decided to come up with a great Friday post. I was falling asleep and kept repeating "think of a post for tomorrow," "think of a post for tomorrow," I figured I would grep through my copiousness database of literary genius in the morning. From that I would only post the "best." One little issue. I only remember one dream about a nun with an automatic rifle. It seemed like a bizarre thing to post. I decided against it. While getting ready I had another brilliant idea, but it will take weeks to make it come to fruition... (expect great things in a month or so) which leaves me with next to nothing to say. That has never stopped me before. I feel obligated to give all 12 of you something to bring happiness to your life. This is something I found a while back and to be honest is seems both odd and intriguing.


Privy Diggers. This is a nice way of say outhouse shoveler. These folks dig up old outhouses, looking for bottles and other "nice" trash that they can sell. They don't consider the job unusual, but rather consider themselves to be treasure hunters. The deal is this, when outhouse's were common (most of these digs are from around 1880-1900), people would do more than just "toil" out there. They would also keep medicine and other "whatnots" in the structure, much like our restrooms. When a bottle was empty they would just throw it down the hole. These guys figure that they could excavate the site and see if they can find any of these old bottles, clean them up and sell them. I'm impressed by the number of bottles they find. "Snake-oil" remedies like, hair restorer, fatigue cure, and other sucker aids. I think this would be a fun hobby, if it weren't for all the dirt, digging and the whole outhouse bit.

I also spent some time at a site reading privy dig poetry (this person migh be a good one to aviod at parties) I'll spare you all, instead I'll leave you with this picture of a fellow on a privy dig. I hope your not claustrophobic.
http://hollow-hills.com/Gallery/The-Privy/Picture_016a

The Case for Games

I'm a devoted gamer, I enjoy them because they stretch the imagination, immerse you in plot, and transport you to another world. Basically games are the next logical evolution of media.

Consider:

• Papers engaged readers like nothing had before. Papers clued folks into the happenings of the community. They ended isolation, and allowed for vast inter discussion. People knew what was happening around the corner and around the world


• Books rescued people from the humdrum boredom of their life, and the harsh realities of the paper. Allowed for unreal imagination and helped the reader discover the intricacies of their language


• Movies were the immersion media of their time, they had the ability to squezze the vital juice of a book, play or story in two hours or less. They bombarded viewers with a wonder of sights and sounds they had not experienced previously


• Television is a vulgar media, like the stupid cousin of movies. Chopping viewing time to minutes and subjecting you to unwanted ads, and weak story lines. They have managed to bring a small amout of the movie experience home though, and so I will list them here


• Most people want more. When you see a good movie, read a good book, watch a great series on television, you want to subject yourself to further experiences. Relive the experience with others, and re-capture that joy of not knowing what is going to come next. Some go to far (ie Star Trek conventions, walking around dressed like Neo, etc)

PC Games give you the immersion that you can never have with movies, television, or even books. They allow you to control the choices of your characters. I've been playing PC games for 16 years, and they have grown unbelievably complex, but at their core is imagination. You can almost always approach a problem from different angles. One of the first games I played was a series called Kings Quest This games was one of the first games that transitioned from the text adventure to the incredible non-linear graphic interface. Allowing you to freely roam the world and do things in whatever order you pleased (within certain plot confines). As time progressed they just got better and better.

I spend a lot of time playing RPG's (role playing games). As the name suggests, you take the role of a character and use your strengths and weaknesses to guide your interaction with others, and what you can or cannot do. Some characters are strong fighters, some a thieves, and some use magic to accomplish their means, some good, some evil. Most RPG's are set in a Tolkien style world, rich with goblins, orcs, rangers, druids, and elves. Like any good medium creators of RPG's stretch their craft by placing players in space, in suburbia, even in Victorian England. With PC Games you can spend 30-100 hours of gameplay before reaching the end of the story. Most good RPGs have a solid driving story and dozens of side quests. They can be played over and over with different characters, and objections. For the money, they're the best entertainment ratio of dollar to hour.

PC games can also be a great social activity. Not every gamer need be an overweight, anti-social, geek (some of us are just lucky). I like it when we all get together for a RTS (real time strategy) LAN party. This is the time when you find out who your real friends are. Who will you make allies with? Who will be the first attacked? Who can hold out the longest? Who will drug your Mt Dew? The truly cunning will keep up the diplomatic relations all the while caching a deadly arsenal of minions and WMD's. I have plenty of male bonding stories that took place while blowing the tar out of a friend’s poorly guarded base.


I'll leave you with a brief summary of one of my all time favorite games. Arcanum is set in a Tolkien style world in the middle of an industrial revolution. The graphics were so-so even for the 2001, but the story captivated me in a way that I haven't experienced since. You can pursue magic, learn to build electric lights, steam engines, or molotov cocktails. Even the manual is written in the style of the game. As diary excerpts of an anthropologist exploring the contryside. (we spared no expense) I'm always up to try the next game and see how far we can go.

Trends

This is a full fledged rant.

Trendy Idiots:

1. Mini Motorcycles. "Yea I have a motorcycle!" "It cost me $500, you have to be a midget, and I can't go any roads!" "Sweet huh?" I hate that people drive them down the road and expect me to avoid them. They only have two gears, so they’re unbelievably LOUD, and these dopes always give you the, "I'm a stud with my masculinely minute motorcycle," look. If I was a girl (spare us all), I couldn't imagine dating this guy.
We used to have a moron who would drive around our neighborhood about 50 times before he finally decided it wasn’t fun anymore, or maybe that's how long it took for his mommy to clean his room. I’m powerless to do anything about it, though I admit thoughts of nails, spikes, and elaborate macho-male dream scenes (if you’re a female- ask your male friends)

2. Fuzzy Boots – I'm sorry if this one offends, but you need to know. Okay... well the truth is, you look like an Eskimo in the big city. I'm sorry but no one cares how comfortable they are. This is a mistake… remember the side ponytail? The polo collar pulled up? Spray on hair? Pegged pants? Color changing T-shirts? I have pictures of me in pegged pants and they make want to cry. "But everyone else was doing it," doesn't wipe the pain away.

3. Gauged Ears - This is out of control. I don’t even get this one. Here's the only issue... there is no going back. You broke it you bought it. Understand?

"So you want an Earring?"
“No I want people to see thru my ear!”
“Why?”
“They’re terribly useful”
“What!?”
“Sure, I can hold my pen, or dry cleaning, and I can see if I cleaned behind my ears!”


-sigh… I feel better

Sunburn

Well, I've done it again. I've gone and gotten sunburn. I was up on a roof installing a wireless bridge for one of my sites, and didn't even consider the sun. I came home and realized how hot I was. I have this habit of believing that I tan, because I used to. When I was a kid growing up in Santa Monica I was brown all summer. Being part French I do tan well, but not a flash tan, not see thru white to brown. Its a funny thing about perception. I will still tell people, if they ask, that I tan and not that I've burned myself to a crispy red slice of bacon these last two times.

I have to say it's not as bad as the last time. The last sunburn I had was at a Giants game in the bleachers. Now mind you, I HAD suntan lotion, but I didn't want to put it on because I didn't want to look like a greasy fool. So I sat in the bleachers for 9 innings and endured the drunk, cat calling, yelling, garlic breathed, unwashed, over important fans, and general joy that is the bleachers. I learned from one stammering drunk with an inverted baseball cap, that 25% of the games are won by the fans. (I've been waiting for that question to pop up in a Trival Pursuit game) The Giants were schooled but the Cubs, and I was schooled by the sun on what a fool really looked like.

I didn't notice it till we were all in the car driving home and I was shouting bleacher calls to the pedestrians on the San Francisco sidewalk. I turned to one of my fellow passengers and told him that my lips felt chapped. I was informed that my face was chapped. It took two weeks before I finally pulled a lizard and was back to pasty geek white. I felt like this melting ice cream cone. What a day! This was also the day I tried to jump on my car as it flew down Old Redwood Hwy... but that's a totaly different story and I've sworn a vow of silence.

(Do you like the ice cream cone man? Fabricated from one melting McCone, one plastic bendy straw, one flosting flower holder, and 10 minutes of boredom.)

I Have to Have it!

Bioknob - is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. I'm sick and tired of the whole lock and key nonsense.

The oldest known lock was found by archeologists in the Khorsabad palace ruins near Nineveh. The lock was estimated to be 4,000 years old. It was a forerunner to a pin tumbler type of lock, and a common Egyptian lock for the time. This lock worked using a large wooden bolt to secure a door, which had a slot with several holes in its upper surface. The holes were filled with wooden pegs that prevented the bolt from being opened.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllock.htm

Its 2006 and we need to move on. Pharoh, William Shakespeare, and George Burns had to put a key in the lock, we shouldn't have to anymore. If we can surf the web on a moblie phone, view live movies of Mars, and transplant artifical hearts, it's time to ditch the key. I'm saving my pennies... @ $700 this is a steal!

http://www.tychisystems.com/products.asp


Flying Cars - We have them, they're here now. The much anticipated flying car. Sure the FAA won't approve it till Dec 2008, and it will cost $995,000, but when Hilary Rodham Rodham wins the election in '08 you can pack up and fly off this rock.

http://www.moller.com/skycar/

Scrolling Buckle - yes yes, click the link... for under $40 you can have the ultimate in double-take apparel.

http://www.scrollingbuckle.com/

Forecasting Umbrella - This little gaget is the "Sting" of umbrellas, only instead of glowing blue when orcs approach it glows for rain. Oddly enough it's being released this summer, so we probably will not hear much about it this winter.

http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/umbrella/ambientumbrella.pdf

Seen anything else you can't live without?

Dog people

I just received an email from my sister. (thanks Kathleen) It occurred to me, after I looked at the attached file, that dog people are very much their own breed. I know that many people are "dog people" and I don't want to offend, (this might be a lie, but try and let it pass) but I just can't image dressing a cat up for Easter. First off, you would have to drug it, and second it wouldn't sit and let you take a demeaning picture of it. Go on try to take a picture and hold me down at the same time. Try to explain to your friends how cute that flattened, hissing, fuzz ball is in bunny ears under your death grip.

It just occurred to me that dogs are lot like very insecure people. They'll do anything to make you happy. Sit... yeah yeah sure... roll over? Yes yes pant pant... do you love me? Am I a good dog? Please touch me! please take me with you.. pant pant... Am I a good dog!!? I've MISSED YOU! where were you... you smelll like another dog! ARE YOU CHEATING ON ME!? Tell me I'm a good dog!

Sanctions?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - Leader of Iran, and a man misunderstood.
Here are a few quotes I gathered about this commanding speaker.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - On The Question of Iranian Nuclear Power

"Those who themselves produce nuclear arms should not raise hue and cry against those who only want to gain access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes,"

"Countries which have arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons which can be used against other countries at their whim and those who supplied the Baathist regime with (chemical) weapons that killed thousands of innocent Iranians ... now go to all lengths to block Iran from gaining access to peaceful nuclear technology,"

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - On the Horrors of the Holocaust

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...(It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet."

"If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel,"

"Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"

"If there is serious doubt over the Holocaust, there is no doubt over the catastrophe and holocaust being faced by the Palestinians"


President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - On His Vision of Middle East Peace

“Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury,”

"And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism."

"The existence of the Zionist regime is tantamount to an imposition of an unending and unrestrained threat so that none of the nations and Islamic countries of the region and beyond can feel secure from its threat,"

“Very soon, this stain of disgrace will be purged from the center of the Islamic world – and this is attainable.”

~~~

Clearly he is looking out for his peoples best interest. Clearly he only wants peace and the proliferation of his religious beliefs. Clearly we cannot fault him for what a lot of us also strive for? Do you know anyone with a "Free Palestine" bumper sticker? Do you understand what they mean now?

Hannah

There's a new baby at the Brown house. She small, cute has more hair then her Grandfather, and is a super factory for taking perfectly good smelling food and making a mess of it. There's just one thing... we can't get a good photograph of her. I'm not sure why, but she's not photogenic at all. I'm sharing this picture because Patricia said how much she looked like Buddy Hackett. I laughed at first, but when I did the side by side I wept. sigh... oh well add another insecure youth to the population. I was thinking of blowing this up to poster size and putting it up in the nursery. I wonder if Child Protective Services would stop by?

Engage

I thought I'd just get started. I expect to have lots of posts about the inconsequential, some will be cool, some will fail. That's the point of communication. It might also be the reason that males use more sounds effects that females. It helps us get our point across, entertains the crowd, brings in the younlings, and wins us the respect of our piers. Who isn't impressed by a good explosion or a nice motorcycle rev?

I've found that folks feel like they are pressured by the first post. Do I admit my novice? Do I posture about my blog knowledge? I have things that occur to me all the time either, political/stupid/techy and I expect to post frequent, brief, and loaded with grammatical errors. Be sure to comment, or I can't respond. If you know me at all, you know I have to have the last word...

-Peter