Learning to Snipe Is Useful Too Though

Previously on DLOG, we've discussed the fact that there are those who see the potential of video games as educational tools. It would seem that this idea is gaining momentum. The Federation of American Scientists has releases a free game called Immune Attack that uses a first person shooter type system to teach about advanced immune responses.

This is really interesting to me for a lot of reasons. First, because of my lovely wife's research into learning styles, I am at least slightly more aware that not everyone can learn about something by sitting down and reading about it or listening to a professor/teacher talk about it. There are a lot of different ways to learn information, and this seems like an engaging way to do so.

What really intrigues me though is when I combine this information with what I know about gamers. See, if a game is good, a gamer will dedicate themselves to learning every intricacy of a rules system in order to gain an edge in their play. A good example of this is those who truly engage themselves with role playing games (RPG). I'm as guilty as any of them - if a RPG is well written, I will dedicate myself to figuring out the best combination of armor, what weapons work against which enemies, and which skills to advance in to best suit my character's current development. The point is, the rules of these games are complex, and if you're into it they're worth learning.

Now imagine a situation where that rule set is molecular biology, or chemisty, or particle physics. It's all in the way it's presented. If you can build an engine that makes it engaging (and I'm not talking about that letter blaster junk either) then you can make it worth someone's while to learn these rules. The D&D kids could be learning how to build better nanomachines in place of the interesting but largely non-useful rules that they are currently memorizing. Add to that that games are built around a system where you advance when you're ready, and you have a self-pacing learning system. My God people, with the right software, we could be building an army of uber-geeks.

Seriously, I think there's real potential to help people who have trouble learning advanced topics (or even non-advanced topics) in a traditional classroom setting, which I personally believe is most of us. I don't think this would replace traditional classrooms, but it could provide people who don't excel in them another way of approaching information. In our brave new, "no child left behind" country that we're striving for, it seems like we should be putting the information out there any way possible.

Which makes me wonder - has anyone ever attempted educational porn? I mean for a topic other than biology.

My $.02: Food Review - Doritos:The Quest

There's an old gyspy curse, "May you get exactly what you want", that suddenly feels very relavant. As discussed yesterday, I declared that I would not only hunt down, but then actually eat the questionable comestible that has been belched forth from the bowels of the Frito Lay company, namely Mountain Dew flavored Doritos, a.k.a "The Quest". Well, one would assume it was the bowels anyway.

I should begin by saying that nothing I say will do these things justice. I had hoped that they would be awful. I mean, how could they not be awful? As such, I took such glee in the actual depths of sheer repugnance that resulted in my eating them that it bordered on masochism. So, while I can not by any means recommend buying them, if one is offered to you, you would be doing yourself a disservice in turning it down, if for no other reason to give yourself a new baseline definition of awful against which you can base all other foods. ("Hmm, maybe nacho cheese and chocolate sauce on sushi was a bad idea after all. Well, at least it wasn't as bad as Quest Doritos.") If, on the other hand, you are weak of stomach, just walk away, and allow me to act as a culinary canary plumbing the darkness before us.

That said, on with the show. When you first eat one, mostly what you'll get is lime and salt. This is not bad at all, as I'm a big fan of the overly salty lime chips from Qdoba. Now, behind this, there begins a hint of sweetness, which is not overwhelming. It's a tequila shot short of being a margarita chip, so again, not so bad. A little odd, but not so bad.

Then you swallow, and the travesty of what they've done truly shows itself. See, I'm a drinker of diet pop only these days, but even the diet version of Mountain Dew leaves what I can only describe as a sticky film at the back of your throat. As I recall, the pure, sugar laden version left almost a cough syrup-like coating that led to feeling like I was a couple of hacks away from bringing forth a neon green loogie. Sorry for the visual, but it's the truth.

Well, that they captured perfectly. I can't believe that it's on purpose, but there it is. After swallowing, your throat will contain some kind of sugary dreck that will remain for several minutes. It's a variety of gross I have never before experienced in a snack food.

I should point out the giddy joy I took in having others try them. Descriptions ranged from "Not bad" (a Mountain Dew freak - shocker) to "It's like eating a handful of Doritos and Fruit Loops at the same time". My favorite came from a message board, "It's like eating a chip soaked in urine". Oddly, I can't say that any of them are wrong.

What's funny is that having said all of that, my original position still stands. It's so bad that I can not in good conscience tell you to avoid these altogether. It almost demands that you actually try it and see for yourself. Just know that, should you choose to follow in my shoes, you will be left soiled, somehow dirtied, and what you will get for the first time actually lends credence to the marketer's cry of Doritos being an "extreme experience".

These are extremely nasty.

I'm Guessing the Quest Involves Supressing the Gag Reflex

On a previous rant, I discussed the ever growing slate of Doritos flavors. Specifically, I mentioned that there were too many &#*$ing flavors of Doritos now. Adding insult to injury, the Habanero Doritos have been pushed out of the local gas station completely by other flavors. Not cool, guys.

I swore up and down that I was finished trying new flavors of Doritos. I mean, after the affront on my taste buds that was the Spicy Sweet Chili (if you didn't follow the link, I will sum up for you - ick), I really don't want to know what else they will come up with in the mad scientist lab that produces the colored powders clinging tenaciously to the outside of these things. I mean, I was forced to doubt the credibility of Stephen Colbert because of how awful they were. Colbert for God's sake!

Then, a strange wind blew across the internet. A rumor of something new, something different, something so wrong that the mere idea of it won't leave my mind. In one of their freaky marketing ploys, the people at Frito Lay (code monkey like Fritos - sorry, I have to do that) have release another mystery flavor, a flavor given the uninformative but intriguing moniker "Quest".

Now, having been assaulted by the last new thing, why, you may ask, would I even consider trying this? Because, if the rumors are to be believed, if the talk is true, then what they have done is so full of badness that it would be a horrible injustice not to try it. It would be like not admiring Ed Wood for being the worst movie maker ever, like pretending that Milli Vanilli didn't happen. You may as well try and tell yourself that Al Gore won in 2000.

So what is this thing that they've done? Quite simply, they put together two things known for their nastiness, both associated with both the false "extreme"-ness that the marketing crowd adores. They combined two negatives, and they are hoping for the culinary equivalent of a positive.

They made Mountain Dew flavored Doritos.

I haven't seen them. I can't find a bag yet. If...nay, when I do locate these crimes against nature, I will buy not one, but two bags. One I will place on display, to remind myself the lessons that we should have taken from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein - just because technology means that we can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea.

And the other bag? Dude, I'm so eating that #&$%. In the immortal words of the man staring down the barrel of Dirty Harry's hand cannon, "I gots to know".

***** UPDATE *****
Not ten minutes after I posted this, I went to fill my tank with gas, and while there were no Habanero Doritos to be seen, there were in fact two bags of "Quest" flavored Doritos. I have yet to open the eatin' bag, but should I survive, I will report the results tomorrow.

Thanks - I Just Had It Stuffed.

When I drive down the road, I can't help but notice little businesses that sit along the road, and I always wonder what they do there. I don't mean the stores - obviously, I know what they sell at the local Joe's House of Artificial Appendages. No, I'm talking about the little industrial buildings, the ones made of brick with small windows all around them. They don't always have the most informative names. Maybe Joe could give them some pointers.

Anyway, before I moved I used to drive by one such business. It was a sqaut, gray-bricked building that sat a ways back from the road. At the top of the building was a logo that consisted of a beaver sitting on a couple of logs. As I was driving, I never got to read past the word "Beaver" on the sign.



This stood as an example of one of those things that burrows itself into my brain and squirms during those quiet moments where I'm supposed to be reflecting on my life or praying or whatever the hell it is other people do when it's quiet and they're alone. What, precisely, did this company do? Do they build dams? That would make sense. In fact, that's the only thing I could think of that did make sense. Well, that or they were manufacturing merkins, but that didn't seem very likely.

It wasn't until I was at my new far from this little building that I figured it out. I was procuring a handful of delicious Boston baked beans when I happened to notice that the top of the machine was printed with that same beaver in relief. So they made candy machines. Bizarre. Bizarre, and a little dissapointing (be honest - you were rooting for merkins too).

This led to another one of my thoughts about these companies. At what point was someone sitting around, and they decided to start a business, and they picked that? I don't just mean candy machines, I mean whatever they make. Lamps. Window blinds. Shoelaces. Seriously, think about it, someone was sitting down at dinner, and he says to his wife, "Honey, I think I want to go into business for myself. I'm tired of taking orders from someone else. I'm going to buy that little building up the street, and I'm going to start manufacturing those little things people put in their wallets to hold pictures. Well, that or merkins.". (Okay, that one was just gratuitous - I'll stop now.)

What's funny is that what started this train of thought was that there are little businesses that live along the short road my company is at the end of, one of which is a company that makes hot air balloons. Frequently, I'll look out a window or drive past and witness them blowing up a hot air balloon, presumably for quality assurance purposes. I've seen all colors. I've seen one with the cover of Dark Side of the Moon on it. You get the idea.

Well this morning, this morning I drove by a forty foot beaver. This morning I drove past a forty foot beaver wearing a baseball cap. And waving. With a three foot flame shooting up it's butt. Not everyone gets an omen first thing in their day that lets them know things are gonna get weird. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

And I seriously have to get a cell phone with a camera.

My $.02: Game Review - Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

To begin with, I finished reading Doctor Faustus, and I have to say I feel a little robbed. First, I got it off a list of the 100 scariest books, and it's not even a damned book. It's a play. Okay, fine. Whatever. I've read plays, and what with Marlowe being a contemporary of Shakespeare, it's not like I'll just blow through it. I'm sure some of you had to read Hamlet or Macbeth in school and know what I'm talking about. Well, guess what - I blew through it. I will say this - I think that if it was properly staged, it could be scary as hell. So, no review for that.

So, onto the actual topic - Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. First, I would say this is one of the most open games I've played. Yes there are a sequence of events that you have to follow to finish the game (which I didn't do - more on that later), but if you want, you can just run around smashing stuff up and collection points and comic book covers while irritating the armed forces into attacking you.

So, the gist of the game should be familiar to any Marvel fan (and now a lot of movie fans). You're Bruce Banner. When you get mad, you turn into a big green guy that has anger issues. He smashes stuff. The game arc is that your doctor friend found a way for you to exercise some self control while you're the Hulk, using his strength for your own purpose, that purpose, as usual, being to find a cure.

At first, it's a great setup. As the Hulk, you can interact with nearly everything in your environment. Sure, that interaction usually results in something getting destroyed, but it's entertaining anyway. Nearly everything is a weapon. See a light post? Break it off and use it as a bat. Pick up a car, split it in half, and now you have a pair of righteous boxing gloves. And while throwing a cow was fun, throwing a tank was so much more satisfying.

The catch is the sheer number of things you can do. As you destroy stuff and accomplish missions, you earn point you can use to buy new moves. While this is cool, you eventually hit the point of having all of these moves that you really don't use. In fact, I managed to get by with only two or three of the moves for most of the major battles. Add to that the fact the moves become fighting game style button combos, and I would have to have dedicated hours to just learning how to pull them off. As a "casual gamer", I'm not really a fan of spending more time learning a game rather than playing a game.

The other issue was that the missions themselves get repetitive really quickly. The whole game boils down to "Destroy X", "Retrieve X", or "Defend X", all while being attacked by military personnel. The first few times it was amusing, and the big boss battles were interesting, but a lot of the stuff in between was a lot less fun than free roaming.

I will point out that the game has a ton of mini games that kind of make up for the lack of interesting missions. The mini games are hot spots in the areas you roam where you can take on challenges for points to earn new moves. They range from Golf (with a boulder as a ball) to races to kicking cars through a goal post. The mini games ended up being a lot more fun than the actual game.

In the end, I lost interest in the missions to the point where I didn't finish the game. Because all of the missions have to be performed in a linear order, it started to become a chore to try and progress. Each time I played, I had to seriously consider whether I wanted to try and make any progress, or if I'd just smash stuff until the tanks showed up to try and stop me. As often as not, I chose the latter.

So, overall, the game was amusing, but not anything I would highly recommend. If you're big into fighting games you might get more out of it. I just couldn't make myself care anymore about retrieving one more part for one more machine.

Oh, and they put in an escort mission (you know - protect this doof driving a Pinto through a military zone). I've said it before and I'll say it until they learn. No one likes *$&%ing escort missions. No one. Stop putting them into games. Seriously.

A New Meaning to the Term "South of the Border"

As discussed previously, I went to the gastroenterologist yesterday where I was given a clean bill of health. Apparently, my low iron is the result of my being a frequent blood donor. I guess that's what I get for helping people. Anyway, this is good news, because I was afraid I was going to have cancer and have to get chemotherapy, and I don't want to have to start growing my hair out all over again, so we dodged a bullet there, huh?

I have to say, though, that the procedure ended up being quite unnerving to me, not because of the procedure itself, but because of the drugs that accompanied it. As promised, right after we talked about what was going to go down (or up, depending on what you're referring to) the nurse took a small amount of something and pumped it into my arm. I remember wondering how long it would take to kick in, as the doctor was already gloved in a somewhat menacing manner.

And then I remember nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Seriously, next thing I know, I'm in a recovery room with my lovely wife, vaguely aware of the fact that I can see other people waking around and I've just let loose with a thunderclap, all the more frightening given the amount of laxatives I had taken the evening prior. The nurse was kind enough to explain that it was a side effect of the procedure, which somehow doesn't make me feel better about trumpeting in a room full of strangers, but I guess I should be grateful. Fortunately, it was all thunder and no lightning, so I had that going for me as well.

I find the memory loss aspect of this all terrifying though. I seriously have absolutely no recollection of anything after the drugs. Not even a glimmer. Now, I'm sure the nice people who did the procedure were on the up and up, but it's scary that I was essentially in their care and helpless for up to an hour and I can't remember any of it. Worse, they knew that I wouldn't be able to.

What if they dressed me up like a clown while I was out? What if they used my posterior as a vase for a dozen daisies and then sent a picture to an ex? I'm petrified to Google the name of the doctor for fear that I will discover one of those MySpace pages where you can't see the picture unless you're added as a friend.

What's funny is that those of us who used to follow the X Files knows that alien abduction is the usual culprit of lost time. There's a certain irony is this, considering that getting probed is what I expected, and it's the other alternatives that bother me. Besides, I'm reasonably sure that the doctor wasn't an alien. Although now that I think about it, he did have kind of a Pancho Villa mustache, and it's not like I asked to see his papers or anything.

Oh man, I totally got probed by an alien. Someone call David Duchovny.

Hopefully I Would Be Conscious Enough to Say "Ta Da!"

So as mentioned yesterday, tomorrow is the procedure, and as usual I'm approaching it with all of the seriousness that such a medical matter requires. I'm following all of the doctor's instructions, including today's all-clear-liquid diet and self-induced illness (let's just say I'll be taking more laxatives than the cast of America's Next Top Model on the way home from Burger King). Other than that, I've just been giving a lot of thought to ways I can go above and beyond to prepare for my colon's video debut.

My first idea was graffiti. I have no idea how one could pull it off, but how cool would it be to have the doctor looking into his little television only to come across "Richard Gere's place was nicer" scrawled across an intestinal wall. Or "Why is everything they sell in the gift shop corn based?". Okay, that one was a little rough, but you get the idea.

Of course this is completely impractical. I mean, where does one buy a tiny can of spray paint anyway? So, let's come up with something else.

My next thought was creative things that could be eaten a reasonable time before the procedure that would result in an amusing discovery. I had trouble coming up with what though. At first I was thinking a small warning sign, either "Do Not Step" or no smoking or some sort of high wind advisory. Then, I considered a fortune cookie fortune ("Beware - the end is nigh."). Building on the previous theme, maybe a rubber gerbil. (Do they make rubber gerbils? On second thought, don't answer that.) Then I read how many laxatives they expected me to take today and any hope of an amusing ingestion went right out the window.

In the end (heh), I realized that any such shenanigans would be highly irresponsible on my part, and that instead I should just approach this the way any reasonable person would - hope the doctors don't find a damned thing. Still, a small part of me will continue to consider the possibilities right up until the drugs kick in. Really, how often does such an opportunity present itself?

On an unrelated note, does anyone know where I could get one of those bouquets of flowers that appear out of nowhere that the magicians use? No reason, I was just thinking, you know, that would be something really cool to have around the house.

In Brief...

No, not in briefs (perverts). I have way too much going on to write a long post today, but I wanted to let you all know that I went to my appointment yesterday, and it led to another appointment on Thursday, the details of which we won't discuss here.

I'll be swallowing a camera, and that's the part I'm comfortable talking about. 'Nuff said.

My $.02: Book Review - Haunted

There is this group of people on internet message boards who put links in their posts that say there something funny or cool or relevant to the conversation. Some of these links are genuine. Others are harmless pranks, Rick Rolls or Bananaphone links. Some of these links though, are something dangerous. One innocent click, and you're presented with a horrific image or video that, depending on your sensitivity, potentially damage you, something that will shake your belief in the general good of humanity, and most importantly, something you can never un-see.

This, in a nutshell, is Haunted.

This is a book that is not interested in frightening you so much as making your stomach turn. Endlessly. Seriously, it's the literary equivalent of dead baby jokes - it doesn't fulfill any need other that trying to see who can be the grossest.

Now maybe that's someone's thing, but it isn't mine. When I rent a horror movie, it's either because I want it to be creepy, a la The Others or The Sixth Sense, or I want the horror and gore to be done in a campy, we-know-how-silly-this-all-is style like Army of Darkness or Planet Terror. In books, I want the same thing. What I don't want is detailed descriptions of stomach churning goriness.

There were two factors that made this extra painful, the first being that this was a collection of short stories wrapped in one larger story arc about a group of kidnapped writers lured by a writers retreat. This was painful because when you're faced with a bunch of short stories, you know the results are going to be hit or miss. That's just the nature of short story collections. This book, however, was way more misses than hits. Out of over twenty short stories, I would only call two of them interesting, and only one of those good.

Worse than this was the fact that all of the stories, including the main arc, are predicated on the idea that people are essentially awful. Every action is based on pure selfishness, but even that isn't enough of an assumption. In order to accept, at face value, any of the various stories, you have to accept that nearly everyone is a murderous, perverted freak only being kept in check by the law or something like it. We're all potential pedophiles or such attention whores that self-mutilation and murder is acceptable if it brings us fame. I don't know if Chuck's mother didn't hug him enough as a child or what, but this is taken to such an extreme that it ends up being so far from realistic that by the end I couldn't take any of it seriously at all.

So there you have it. What I believe was supposed to be a statement about the nature of celebrity, about our obsession with tragedy, about the way media effects our lives was completely lost in a stew of body parts and "what's grosser than gross" descriptions. It's too bad really. Palahniuk seems to have a fairly extensive vocabulary. "Subtlety", however, seems to be missing from it.

On My Own Here We Go

A couple of nights ago, I thought I had insomnia, so I got up, killed a little time trying to get a game running on the PC, failed, and went back to bed. It turns out that instead of insomnia, I was just having a little trouble sleeping that night.

Now last night, I had insomnia.

Laying awake in bed still after almost two hours, I finally got up. I had a monster headache, so reading was out, and I was afraid to play video games because I lose track of time when I do that, so I flipped through the channels, not watching anything. I would absorb a five minute snippet of a bad movie (apparently Paul Rudd was in a Halloween sequel - huh), another five minutes of some cartoon (I still don't get Aqua Teen Hunger Force), five minutes of an even worse movie (if it stars Lou Diamond Phillips and isn't Young Guns, just keep moving), etc.

So yeah, I'm a little ball of joyous sunshine today. At least I've moved beyond the hideously cranky level of exhaustion I'm usually at by now. Nope, I'm all the way into the much preferred slightly-giddy stages. It's a little like being under the influence, but without any of the harsh repercussions. Well, as long as I don't nod off at my desk anyway.

See, that's the catch - I have a job where thinking is involved, and I'm now so entrenched into this project that the thinking is not just involved, it's expected. I have to constantly work with a second or third person, so just sitting back and writing monkey code while listening to my headphones is out. I'm expected to be brilliant, dammit.

Hopefully I can fake my way through the rest of day without having to drain too many more pots of coffee. I'm starting to reach dangerous levels here. Just a minute ago I felt an uncontrollable urge to shave off everything but a mustache, get a sombrero and poncho, and wander through the woods with a donkey carrying a sack of coffee beans.

Ah hell, who am I kidding. I always have that urge.

Hopefully They Won't Notice That All My Good Ideas Come From There

So, about a month ago I had a medical scare involving my heart beating funny. Well, after blood tests, the concern came back that my iron was pretty low. We discussed my diet, blah blah blah, I went back to taking my Flinstones Chewables, eating more leafy greens, whatever.

A month goes by, and two days ago I follow my instructions and get more blood drawn to see how we're doing. I make an appointment for Friday and figure the doctor will tell me that everything is swell now. Instead, the next day the doctor calls me wanting to talk. As a rule, doctors do not ever call with good news.

Well, my iron is still low, and while that can be caused by all sorts of innocuous things, there is a big one that isn't innocuous, which is internal bleeding caused by who knows what. So, the doctor cancels my appointment and instead hooks my up with a new appointment on Monday to see a gastroenterologist to see if something yucky is happening internally (actually, I would assume that something yucky is always happening internally, so I should say something dangerously yucky).

I can not properly express my trepidation at this information. See, I know how these people work. It'll start out innocently enough. They will ask about my family history. They feel around my stomach, maybe asking if it hurts when they push in one spot or another. Next thing I know, the lights will go down, someone will put in a Barry White cd, and the doctor will be lubing up a tiny camera and assuring me that he will still respect me afterwards.

I don't know how to type a shudder, but if I did, I would.

Regardless of my discomfort with the situation here, I don't really have a choice. I'm feeling pretty run down, and this morning I woke up with what felt like a bad hangover, which I typically don't mind but since I didn't go to bed drunk I'm not thrilled with. Also, the fact is that the men in my family tree aren't exactly known for their impressive life spans, a family tradition I have every intention of breaking. So no matter how humiliating it may be, I will proceed with whatever the doctor insist upon.

You think they'll send me flowers afterwards?

It's Like Finding Them In the Street...Sorta

So, as discussed previously, I'm a gamer. This doesn't necessarily imply that I actually play video games, but rather that, given free time and the choice of activities, I would frequently choose them. Anyway, while I do label myself a gamer, I am also someone who doesn't spend money on himself, and thus doesn't spend money on video games.

We live in an age where you can actually do quite well for a while without spending money. For example, there are lots of flash based games free to play on the internet, some of which don't suck. A man named Ben Leffler has produced three such diversions in the form of Ex Mortis, Ex Mortis 2, and Purgatorium, three entertaining and occasionally disturbing little survival horror/adventure games. Many examples of free content like that can be found at sites such as Newgrounds. The catch is that a lot of that content sucks (and a lot of it is filth - don't go randomly clicking around until you read the rating), so you have to have some serious time to invest in looking for good stuff. (I used to have a job that included scheduled time where they knew they had no work for me to do. For weeks. So yeah, I've tested those waters pretty thoroughly.)

What if I don't want want some online trifle to mess with though? What if I want to play a real game, with production values and everything. Well, here we run into the dreaded moral gray area. See, I believe that downloading music and movies, when such things are not being offered by their creators, is a bad thing. We, as a generation, can try as hard as we want to justify such things by railing against the evils of the RIAA or MPAA, but the truth is that we all, deep down, know it's still stealing. Argue if you will, but it is.

What has this to do with the topic at hand? Well, like my book selections, I don't believe that a game's worth is inherently tied to it being the newest thing with the hottest graphics. I think of a lot of games as art, and if it's well done, if it moves you somehow, the value doesn't diminish with time. So when I look at an old review for something, or have to look up some reference in an effort to understand a joke I'm missing (I really don't like missing jokes), sometimes I find some game I really wish I had played, but simply can't go out and buy anymore unless I feel like getting swindled on Ebay.

It turns out there are whole sites dedicated to this very topic. It's referred to as abandonware. It software that no one distributes any more. They had their run, they made their sales, and now they've moved on. Hell, some of these companies don't even exist any more. So you have sites like Home of the Underdogs that does nothing but catalog images of this software and make it available for download.

And therein lies my issue. Technically, no one who made this product is trying to make money on it any more. In fact, I couldn't go out and buy a copy if I wanted to, unless I got some old used copy online that might not even run. Still, I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I download these games, and each time I do, I feel like I'm a bad, bad man.

On the bright side, I probably won't have time to play them anyway, so it's really more of a light gray moral area. Maybe even an off-white. Maybe beige. Maybe I just really want to play System Shock 2.

Stupid morality.

Why No One Hangs Out With Susan Anymore

I don't watch a ton of television, and frequently when I do, there aren't commercials (or, in the case of Disney, there aren't commercials for anything that isn't made by Disney). Nevertheless, it seems that every time I do watch commercial television, I am inundated by commercials for prescription drugs, which really bothers me. It's not so much the actual advertising for these drugs that gets to me (although I do think that's a little weird). Rather, it's the way they work in the big medical warnings.

At first, it was blatant and appropriate. Near the end of the advertisement, a professional voice actor would start talking about possible side effects, drug interactions, etc. Sometimes, they would even put it in print, in case the television is muted perhaps. Either way, aside from the occasional surprising and outlandish notification (I've still never heard anything that can beat "may cause explosive flatulence with oily discharge"), it was pretty straightforward.

That was eventually found to be insufficient for our good friends in Madison Avenue. We can't have the drug makers breaking the brilliant illusion of a man who has successfully dealt with his erectile dysfunction by letting them cut in with this big scary warning about the potential heart attack he could have (although I'm always unclear if the risk is caused by the drug, or the shock that this poor fellow is getting lucky after who knows how long, but again I digress). No, instead we'll have him sit down with a fake doctor who will pretend that he has memorized, word for word, every bit of the associated warning label, while Mr. Back-in-action sits there and nods thoughtfully. Progress!

Even this was found to be lacking, however, so they progressed to what I find to be the most irritating version. A woman is telling her friends about some wonderful new birth control pill, and halfway through the conversation starts spouting off the warnings, again perfectly memorized, in this 30 second diatribe. Her friends sit there, looking at one another and again nodding thoughtfully. They end the whole mess with one of them making a joke about the loquacious saleslady having been to medical school or some such bull&$%*, and they all have a good natured laugh. In reality, this kind of verbal assault would probably have been met with something more along the lines of, "Wow, that drug sound interesting and all, but seriously Susan, do you ever shut the &$%* up?".

So please, whoever is out there writing this crap, cut it out. We're all big kids who can handle a little truth in our advertising. None of us believes that you guys have come up with some batch of chemicals that we can pump into our system with complete disregard to what effects other than the desired ones may be the result. It's okay to just tell us what the risks are without dressing them up.


**WARNING**

Possible side effects of reading Dangerously Low On Grog may include eye rolling, snickering, guffawing, chortling, and potentially projectile spraying of a beverage from the nasal cavity. Drinking beverages while reading Dangerously Low On Grog may increase these risks. Also, some incidents of weeping have been reported, but these effect were generally mild and only occurred during serious posts in either women related to the author, big sissies, or both.

No known issues have occurred in those taking prescription or recreational medications while reading Dangerously Low On Grog. In fact, if such medications make the author seem more witty or talented, then taking these medications are encouraged.

Do not attempt to operate a vehicle or heavy machinery while reading Dangerously Low On Grog.

Should you experience any nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or other such medical emergencies while reading Dangerously Low On Grog, you should probably step away from the computer and go see a doctor or something. For the doctors sake, take a shower first. Depending on the symptoms, maybe take two.

Guess How Far He Can Throw Cake

Today, my little man turns two. Strangely, I'm not dealing with this well. I'm thinking it's a combination of things, the first being that I know he's my last baby, and he's simply not a baby anymore. The other thing is that Father's day is Sunday, and this year I'm feeling a little, I don't know...off I guess.

Currently, the Moose continues communicating mostly through actions, although he does talk more these days. At least these actions are becoming more civilized. For example, when he's finished eating his dinner, he now stands up in his seat and declares, "All done". This is much improved over his previous habit of deciding he was finished with something and using that something, be it a sippy cup or a slice of pizza, to see how far he can currently throw. He was starting to get pretty close to the couch, so I'm much relieved that this is a habit he's phasing out.

He's also starting getting into more complicated games with me. Previously, his favorite activity was sitting on my stomach, bouncing up and down and laughing each time I went "oof" at a landing (I'm only faking about half of them - he's pretty heavy). Last weekend, we entered into a long game of blanky tug of war instead. I pretend to strain and heave, eventually pulling him into my lap. He would giggle and also pretend to pull. After a few rounds, he started really pulling, so I let him win. He liked that one a lot more, laughing out loud when I landed on him.

Beyond that, we continue on the way we were. He likes to throw things. He likes to play ball. He really likes to be in the water (we start swimming lessons next week). Overall, he's just your average two year old boy. Of course, by "average", I mean handsome, charming, cute, funny, and overall perfect little boy.

Happy birthday, bud. I love you more than either one of us will probably ever know.

Now In Living, Breathing 3-D!

The Moose loves to throw things. If he can reach it, he will pluck it up, smile with glee, and hurl it with great force as far as he can. For someone who not quite two years old, "as far as he can" is a greater distance than you might think. It is for this reason that I found myself at the optometrist this week, picking up my now repaired eye glasses.

Now, the theory is that just the frames were broken. I was told that they would send them to the frame manufacturer, who would fix up the frames, and send them back. The key thing to note here is that, according to this process, nothing should have changed with my prescription.

When I put my restores glasses on after three weeks of wearing an old pair, things seemed distorted. It's kind of hard to describe to anyone who hasn't had any experience with hallucinogenic drugs, but everything seemed to be shifting all the time. Naturally, I put my old glasses back on to drive back to work, but since then, I've worn my new ones. The shifting has settled, but hasn't entirely gone away - occasionally, when I move my head, walls and floors look to be angled somehow wrong.

Even weirder than this (which adds a bit of surrealism to my day that I have thus far been enjoying), I have gained an odd version of 3-D vision. You know how occasionally you'll look at a flat picture, and if the foreground is the right shade of red and the background is the right shade of blue, the former will seem to float above the latter? Well that's happening to me, but for really odd things.

As an example, at work I have adorned my cubicle walls with the manuals, covers, and sometimes even discs of various games I have enjoyed in the past. One of the wierder games I played was Total Distortion, a game centered around traveling to another dimension to take footage that was then used to make and sell music videos back home. No, seriously, that's what the game was about. Anyway, this is the cover on my wall:



Now, with my glasses off, this just looks like a weird guy with red hair and a guitar warrior getting his rock on - so, nothing unusual. I put my glasses on, and I swear that it practically swims in three dimensional goodness. It's really hard to describe how disorienting this is. I read todays Penny Arcade (which won't be funny to anyone not following Jack Thompson's current shenanigans), and the black bubbles float above the images, and the red text pops out a mile above that. As Keanu put it so well, "Whoa".

Thus far, the new visual oddities are minor and don't seem to be doing any damage, so I've not returned to the optometrist with a "WTF?". I can only assume that my glasses were exposed to some odd form of radiation, and that, given time, more awesome powers will develop. Maybe, just maybe, I'll finally have those x-ray specs I was promised by my comic books so many years ago.

Sweet!

And Don't Ask About A Through W.

At some point in my mid twenties, I was branded. I don't mean that someone took a hot piece of metal and used it imprint their mark upon my hiney (and if I did, I certainly wouldn't be telling you all about it). No, I mean some freak in a marketing department decided that they needed a way to refer to people my age without actually acknowledging that we were anything more than a demographic, thus allowing them to remove any humanity we had in their eyes.

Thus, Generation X was born.

Actually, Generation X was originally the title of a book about teenagers in the sixties. Unfortunately, someone in the nineties caught wind of the expression and, since we were just getting started with the habit of putting the label "extreme" on everything from sports to snack chips, it seemed fitting to pin an X to an entire generation. Think of it - an entire population of people born between 1965 and 1982 that would be totally "extreme". To the max. Or something.

It took a while for it to sink in that when people on the nightly news referred to Generation X (or worse, "Gen X"), that it was my people they were talking about. There was no questionnaire or anything to see if I qualified. No one asked if I distrusted government, used the internet, or felt apathetic towards politics in America. They didn't even ask if I listened to Nirvana or Pearl Jam. Nope, one day I woke up, and there it was - I was part of Generation X.

I do try to look at the bright side of things, however. "Generation X", as a title, sucks less than a lot of other generational titles. "Baby Boomer" is something my son does to his diaper that makes me leave the room. "Generation Y" is just a derivative of "Generation X", and sounds not nearly as cool. And seriously, "Millennials"? What is that, something you plant and hope it comes up nice in 1000 &$%#ing years?

So there you go. I guess all in all, it's not so bad being pinned with the label Generation X. There are a lot worse labels a person can be pinned with, like "pundit" or "lawyer" or "Jack Thomson".

Ooh, that last one gave me a chill.

My $.02: Book Review - The Caves of Steel

Recently, I joined a message board of like minded people who I felt reflected many of my interests (read as "geeks"). In entering a conversation one day, I had my geek credentials questioned, resulting in a pop quiz on Asimov's three laws of robotics. Having read I, Robot many years ago, I had quite forgotten these, and had my geek card taken from me. It's hard to express the shame and suffering this caused, but a kind soul recommended I read The Caves of Steel in an effort to better educate myself.

The Caves of Steel is Asimov's first full-length novel revolving around the previous world he had created in the short stories of I, Robot. While the story takes place in the far future, when man has inhabited several other worlds and intelligent robots are seemingly everywhere, it's really a simple murder mystery. Apparently, Asimov didn't really care for science fiction being seen as a genre, rather viewing it as a flavor that could be applied to other genres. Thus, we get The Caves of Steel.

The story is pretty straight forward. People who have moved off of Earth are separated from those who have remained both in distance and life views. Spacers, as those that live their lives on other planets are called on Earth, believe in strict population control, and rely completely on their robots for survival. People on Earth lives in great enclosed cities (the titular caves of steel) where they eek out a life consisting of strict rules about when you eat, what you eat, where you live, how you travel, etc., and resent any robot presence as a threat to their livelihood, as the robots take jobs away from humans.

Naturally, there is much tension between the Spacers and those who have remained behind, tension that is held tenuously in place by the fact that Spacer technology is advanced to the point where they could pretty much wipe out their terrestrial counterparts without too much effort. As such, the murder of a prominent Spacer within their Earth embassy causes much tension for those who have been assigned to solve said murder, a problem exasperated by the fact that the officer assigned the task is also assigned a Spacer partner in the form of a robot that looks just like the victim. Despite the obvious sitcom potential here, hilarity does not ensue.

Interestingly, this really doesn't read like a science fiction book. It took me a little bit to get into it, but once I did, it sort of blew by. The story was engaging, and the twists were well done and logical. Really, it was overall a good mystery story, and this is coming from someone who doesn't particularly like mysteries. I was especially impressed that when everything came out at the end, I realized that had I wanted to, it was something I could have inferred from the facts given. One of the reasons I stopped reading mysteries was that after reading most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, I got sick of feeling like there was always a clue left out, that no matter how closely I had been paying attention, I could not have guessed the outcome. There was none of that here, and it made it all the more enjoyable.

So there you go. This one definitely doesn't fall into my books-that-make-me-think-too-hard string that I've been running lately, but I enjoyed it all the more for that. Sometimes, I just need a good story.

*Clears throat*
Now then:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

There. Can I have my card back now?

Lucky Thirteen

Today is the the thirteenth anniversary of the day my lovely wife and I got married. For years I relied on the good people at Hallmark to put into words what I needed to tell her, telling myself that it wasn't that I was lazy, it was that they put it better than I could. Maybe at the time, that was an accurate statement. These days all the cards feel, I don't know, fake. Inaccurate maybe. At the very least, there's something insufficient about handing my wife a card that some other guy has handed his wife.

The thing is, it's still difficult to explain how much my marriage means to me. In the past thirteen years, I've become a different person, or at least that's how I perceive myself anyway. When I can make myself, I can sit down and look at every bad habit I came into this marriage with, and look through the years as she helped me diminish each one of them. I can look at every strength I have, and track the ways she encouraged me to develop those strengths. She'll tell you that this is the person I've always been, that she knew that thirteen years ago. I'm not sure I'll ever be convinced of that, but in every way I'm a better man for having her in my life.

Every day, my wife in some way makes my life a better place to be than it ever could be without her. Every day she helps me to become a better person. I'm sure that in another thirteen years, or another thirty, I'll feel the same way.

I love you sweetie. Happy anniversary.

What Does Wonder Woman Say About You?

The wonders of the sleeping mind fascinate me completely. What goes on when we sleep is such an odd process, and while I'm always interested in the debate of whether our mind is just wandering when it creates those bizarre visions it presents us, or if it's attempting to update some sort of internal filing system to make sense of the past day's events, the results are always interesting. Perhaps my favorite part, though, is in those moments just before we completely give ourselves to Lord Morpheous' embrace, instead slipping between wakefulness and dream. It was in this moment, I suppose, when the following bit of advice was given to me:

"That's easy. You just need to ask them who their favorite superhero is."

These were the words spoken to me by my lovely wife Saturday night as I lay there waiting to sleep. They were said with the complete conviction of someone who has seen the light and determined the best course of action. They were clearly not words to be taken lightly.

The only problem was that I didn't know what the *$&% she was talking about.

So, being me, I asked, and this is where things get wonderfully weird. See, she remembered saying it, but could not for the life of her figure out why. So by the time I asked, mere milliseconds, her mind had already done away with the process that had led up the statement. We have no idea where that came from.

So now I keep asking myself what possible problem, what ponderous question led to such a solution. Was it about someone's moral character (are you a Superman or a Wolverine)? Did it have to do with determining potential (I'm guessing Aquaman fans don't expect much of themselves), or maybe social tendencies (Ooh, Batman huh? Not good.)? Maybe it would help if you were buying someone tights and needed to know what color to pick.

Dammit, what does it mean?