I shouldn't be surprised

I was reading the Washington Times today. Found an interesting article. Chaplains in the army aren't supposed to pray to Jesus. God is ok, Christ? Lord forbid. You aren't to pray to Christ or mention the Trinity or Holy Spirit. Lame. They also aren't to mention Allah or pray in Hebrew...so what the heck is the prayer for? Moral support? A nice feel good time together? What does the government think we pray for? As they say there are no atheists in foxholes. The government can't control how we pray in our hearts. Still just another example of control.

And speaking of control I just saw The Island with Ewan McGregor and some chick. Starts off great! Any person with even a limited amount of sci-fi chops figures out what they are in 5 minutes, but still its nice. Action scenes? Good. Especially when that car gets split in two by a piece of steel. Cable guns? Stupid. Double Ewan MacGregors? A cool cliche. The final 10 minutes? Stinks. Totally lame. Way too Hollywood. But what was I thinking, it's Micheal Bay.

3 out of 5 stars for stinking the neding up Bay. After seeing Brazil. Gilliams masterpiece, I just can't tolerate movies with super rot your teeth sweet happy endings. But because the theme is a resounding Philip K. Dickish one I say go ahead and rent it.

First!!

I don't have the luxury of time to put up an elaborate review of the past 2 movies I've seen this weekend/week but I did want to at least mention my seeing them.

Saw Chronicles of Narnia with The Spouse of Proteinstar Sat. Best literary film translation ever, hands down. It helps that the book is less than 200 pages long.

Superb acting, pacing and special effects, after this one and Kong there is no doubt what special effects company reigns supreme.


And speaking of Kong, King Kong is probably one of the greatest remakes ever made. I mean the original is good in that 1933 way. This one? I have never shouted out in a theatre from sheer fear, not ever. But there are 2 scenes that had me squirming in my seat, one with a log and another after a log. What was it with logs? The movie is insane, slow for 45 minutes then BANG! I was laughing from the complete insanity that Jackson bombarded by retinas with...and by insanity I mean pure celluloid gold. Action sequences that were just blow your mind awesome. Jurassic Park eat your heart out.

So there..this year has been amazing for movies...Star Wars III, Harry Potter 4, Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong. Just awesome. Here's something for you, all these movies rocked the box office, the all happen to be sci-fi or fantasy, most of Hollywood is tanking right now, guess what kind of movies we're going to see made in the near future? Oh yeah, sci-fi and fantasy. And they're going to run it into the ground. Gotta love those suits.

So run to your local theatre and feed my lust for all things science fiction/fantasy. Hollywood's finally going to make what I want.

Here's some introspection for ya

"If you made a charnel pit of all my varied dead, from the flickering pixel-men of that long-ago castle to the latest normal-mapped shrapnel victims, it might blot out the sun.


Such is the magnitude of my carnage."

A Revelation

I don't have a serious bone in my body. Well, I tend to be serious about games and movies, music, but a point could be made that those things aren't serious. And by serious I mean actually pertaining to life and imparting value to it. So in fact, I'm not serious. And I find this aspect of my character to be a serious flaw. Well there's something, the only thing serious about me are my faults.

The reason I bring this up is because I was going to orginally post about the glory and wonder of watching my nearly 3 year old when we do advent every night. We light up to 24 candles , one for each day till Christmas Eve, and open a window in the advent calendar. We read a verse out of Luke and sing a nice little Christmas song, usually off key. But man does she love it...claps and sings along and begs to do advent before dinner. Now I still haven't lost the wonder and joy of Christmas. I'm the first barreling down the stairs to open my stocking. But if I had she would pour it all back in. Wait, I just did post about it.

Well look, I did comment on something serious. Scratch that whole first self-reflective, introspective garbage in the beginning. Which is why I never reflect on my thoughts and feelings. They usually aren't worth a second thought.

I'm still collecting the pieces of my head from around my office

Mr.T once punched Chuck Norris at the exact moment he roundhouse kicked Mr.T in the chest.

The result was the 80's.

5 by 5

A list.

5 Places That I Want to Visit before I Can't:

1. Tortorici, Sicily

2. Trafalgar Square, London, England

3. Olympus Mons, Tharsis bulge, Mars (that volcano is the size of Missouri)

4. The Ziggurat of Ur or The Ishtar Gate of Babylon (same country so I think 2 is fine)

5. Rome, Italy


My 5 Favorite restaurants:

1. Taco Bell

2. Newport Creamery

3. Dave & Busters

4. Texas Roadhouse

5. Brian Kents (Just gotta lay off the Pinot Grigio)

5 Sporting Events I Have to Attend:

1. The Octagon

2. American Gladiators

3. Worlds Strongest Man Competition

4. Flugtag

5. The Most Dangerous Game


5 People That I Want to Share Spaghetti and Meatballs With:

1. Optimus Prime

2. Saint Peter

3. The chick Cain married after moving to Nod

4. Settimo Franchina (My Grandfather)

5. Gabriel the Archangel (want to see if he knows Moroni the angel)


5 Things I Don't Know:

1. How they heck did they figure our universe was shaped either like a torus or a saddle?

2. Why the heck is a face transplant considered an ethical dilemma by the media?

3. Why is Pennsylvania completely devoid of natural bodies of water?

4. Why am I having difficulty typing this section when it should easily be the easiest?

5. uhhhh....um...

so there are 26 dimensions? And the scalar tachyon is the lowest energy state and is one of the energy sources for the antisymmetric tensor field? OK, so I think I have this string theory thing down. When's the test?....not.


Ummm. Rover you're it.

Public Service Announcement

Just discovered a free video on demand service called Sputnik 7 .

Sweet little site, all the music videos you can shake a fist at. I highly recommend Basement Jaxx and their Where's Your Head At, video. Simian. And if you want a good scare, the most frightening freakest video ever is still Who's Your Daddy by Aphex Twin. I have that video on VHS still in the shrinkwrap. Ain't no way I'm opening that in my house!

proteinstar out

MONSTERS!

According to a report in The SUNday Times UK,

50 babies a year are born after the result of a botched abortion. A fact I'm glad the agencies are becoming aware of.

"If a baby is born alive following a failed abortion and then dies (because of lack of care), you could potentially be charged with murder",” said Shantala Vadeyar, a consultant obstetrician at South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust, who led the study.

Yet if you don't screw up and it does die in utero its ok? Absolutely monstrous!

I would have no problem if God decided to smash us with a big rock.

There, it's been awhile since I've made a social ill/bane of society type comment. Except that one about Thanksgiving...I hope I'm not seeing a trend.

Thanksgiving

A time to gorge ourselves on poultry and tubers and crush old women to the floor
in a mad rush to purchase tons of electronics we never needed in the first place.

I love this country.

I'd like to go for a walk...

ah...I'm not fooling anyone.

I'll be stone dead in a moment.

Just a little note to let you know, I'm still here.

2 Girls +
Thanksgiving with both sides coming and I'm cooking +
Grad School =
________________
No time for anything


But I should leave you a nugget of something.

There's this program/website called Mercora.com.
it works like IM, except you stream music in the format of proprietary files that they made. What it means is that you can stream music from other peoples PC's. It also means you can record those streams. And it's legal, due to the same law that allows you to record music off the radio or shows off the TV. Nice huh? You can't burn them, at least I haven't figure a way around it using Audacity and a stream recorder yet. But for listening on your PC it's fine, plus you can get a mobile version for your PDA or whatever. So now I can listen to the latest albums of whoever before plunking down $15.00 for it.

hits on Proteinstar's PC right now:

X&Y by Coldplay (yeah I'm strapped to that bandwagon)
Demon Days by Gorillaz (the track Dare has me completely obsessed with them)
Transatlanticism by Deathcab for cutie (dragged to my death behind this indie wagon)
Give Up by The Postal Service (Since one of the leads are from Deathcab it's a given)
Aphex Twin (Got over his nightmarish face and have fallen completely in love)
Sigur Ros (so what if it's not English? So what if it's not actually Icelandic either?)

Man I love that Dare song, just gets me bopping.


"You've got to press it on you

You just think it

That's what you do, baby

Hold it down, DARE"

No idea what they mean but the beat jams. Seriously Whole Crap jams.

Sounds like a novelty indie jelly company. Seriously Whole Crap Jams. Only the freshest Whole Crap is good enough for our Jams.

The BIG ONE is on its way

Did you feel that?

Boston just had a bit of an earthquake. Yup, that faults acting up again, gonna send that urban sprawl from Boston to Providence right into the drink.

Yup all I have time for, can't wait for school to be done.

I should feel real bad but it's hard

Watching France burn is a bad thing, yet satisfying. I know...People read this blog, you can't say things like that anymore. But it's true. The government of France is one of the most egotistical meglomanicial in Europe and it's nice to see them get their cumuppance.

Every single major city is having major riots, 4700 vehicles have been torched. Schools, businesses, warehouses, all aflame. What's Chirac and his guys doing? Nothing. It's been 12 days and they are finally thinking about curfew. CURFEW! That nation is nuts. Can you imagine riots in every major city in the US? Completely unimaginable, it would be civil war. The National Guard would be all over the place.

I think it's interesting that the Muslim extremists are attacking their biggest ally. We'll see what Frances view on Muslim immigrants will be after this, they do have 5 million after all. Europe looks at the US with such disgust but we can at least manage our population. Someone compared Frances riots with the LA riots in '92. Come on, they aren't even close! If the riots extented 2500 miles across the country maybe then it could be.

I sure hope we don't need to cross the Pond to bail them out again.

If I could channel one man into my forebrain

"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it."

It would be Chesterton. That beautiful and most rare amalgamation of literary genius and commonsense.

Reinforcing Previously Held Beliefs

The result is always good, only the process can be uncomfortable at times. Case in point.

Hitchhikers.

I don't pick them up, unless they are incredibly old and feeble or female and pregnant.

Yet last night I broke my vows and did the unthinkable.

I let a strange man in my van. gasp!

The Bro of Proteinstar and myself had just finished a rollicking good adventure in Faerun. Rykon our resident Sorceror took the noggin off a goblin archer from 40 feet. Gotta love that magic missile, now I just have to wait for the flames to die down before bursting through...oh hitchhikers.

Anyway, game done Bro walks me to the van and this dude comes up to us...

"Got jumper cables?" "Yup" I say and offer him a jump.
"Thanks man, you don't know how bad I need it, I'm not from here, but Pottsville (or something)"

I grab the cables and he's like, "oh, my car isn't here, it's at the Grayhound station."
I was like, "how the heck did you get over here? This is nowhere near the station."

"oh I was at a bar with my bud and...(he smelled it too)...well I have to take care of my ma..."
blah blah

Well, I stepped in it now. How can I retract my offer of help beacuse it got a litttle more involved? My bro gave me a fierce look but came along. So the guy was here for the first time and was "scared of the city". please. He knew how to get to the bus station easily enough, which had me wondering.

Well we chat about Alma Maters and such and turns out he's a college boy from somewhere but isn't going currently, we feign interest.

We arrive at the bus station and I'm in the middle of my, "I saw a huge crane fall from this very spot" story and he gasps, well I thought he was totally into my description so I keep going. yeah, turns out he wasn't and was actually gasping about his missing car. Which he parked right in front of 2 dozen DO NOT PARK signs and another half dozen TOW ZONE placards. Idiot.

I was thinking, were you drunk before you parked?

This is where the story gets interesting.

The guy goes nuts, like is he carrying a knife? nuts. He gets desperate and angry and pleading and nearly violent. Sitting in the back of my Voyager raving.

Mike and I look at each other and brace ourselves for the worst.

"YOU GUYS GOTTA GIVE ME TEN BUCKS!!!"

Unfortunately neither of us had any money. Then he's begging, "please man, hit an ATM or something I just need a taxi out of here! Just a taxi to Reading, 10 bucks man that's all I ask!"

I inform him, none to softly, that a taxi to Reading will cost 3 times that.

We both refuse to give him any money and then he EXPLODES.

Fists clenched and shaking he demands we give him money.

And then it happened...Mike later said I sounded like a real adult...

the spirit of the father of Proteinstar erupted from deep within me and I bellowed, nay roared at this man.

Not sure what I said initially but the man didn't back down at first but retorted with a

"you think I'm scared of you?"

I increased my furor and was getting nearly to the point of contemplating violence when he changed 180 degrees.

"Wait man wait, I'm sorry. No Man I'm really sorry."

We took him to talk with a securitty guard and it looked like he was trying to bum more money. And finally I drove him down to 2nd street to find his friend. At this point I knew this guy only wanted money for more beers. There was no car, no Pottsville, no ma.

I waited 2 minutes outside the bar in case I was wrong and drove off.

I will never pick up a stranger again, and if I do you better be 80 years old and 8 months pregnant with triplets.

Star Trek we have arrived

When scientists can develop stuff that sounds like something Gene Roddenberry cooked up in a fever dream I get all sorts of excited.

photonic silicon waveguide

The man is such a genius I have to give you another

"The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings."

-G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton is the man

"When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."

-G.K. Chesterton

I have become my father

A particularly poignant moment in my household was the weekly watching of Nova on WGBH Boston, the local PBS channel. During the late 80’s and early 90’s, Nova, it seemed, was running endless shows on evolution, the Piltdown man, or Lucy our long lost cousin. Listening to a paleontologist describe the life history of an entire race of beings after discovering it’s patella, which turned out to be a pigs, had my father in such a furious clamor that he was completely unable to sit on the sofa. He would lean forward towards the television, just waiting in anticipation for the narrators next line of complete inanity, upon which he would gesticulate wildly (being Italian) and declare the statement to be utter lunacy.

The day has come when I have taken up the mantle of my beloved progenitor.

I spent the evening watching "The Question of God" on PBS. It was a show comparing the world views of Sigmund Freud and CS Lewis. The quotations of both these men were impressive and intriquing, of course I am biased towards Lewis's way of thinking having adopted several of his mental concepts of God for myself. Yet the frustating part was the roundtable discussion between "highly educated and intelligent thinkers". Good Lord! It was insane. The things that would come out of these peoples mouths were laughable. Intelligent! Bah! They understand stocks, and how many atriums we have in our heart but when it comes to viewing and discussing our state of existence they are woefully inept. "Professing to be wise they became fools."

These agnostics, just another name for the philosophically lazy, and athiests/humanists, if they take their view to it's fullest extent it always results in nihilism and fatalism. If Nietzsche had it right, and God is Dead. With Him dead the standard of moral obligation is gone, we need to replace it, with what? Supermen, the concept of mankinds gradual upward development. As the ape is an embarassment to man so shall man be in comparison to the supermen that come after.

Sounds like...

Nazi propaganda.

Well looks like that's a great world view to replace God with. Germany and central Europe were at the height of Naturalistic thought. Looks like they picked a doozy to replace God with. Why do atheists and humanists think they'll do any better today? Why would they care? They won't be held to account afterwards.

Who cares? Ah my gradmother died..well at least I have her memory. What's that? How long will that last? One good blow to my head will knock grandma out of eternity for good. What kind of comfort is that? At least I can live through my kids. WHAT? Yeah uh that doesn't even mean anything. The good I do will live on. Live on in what? If you're really amazing it last a generation after you, maybe two. The truely great get in text books that no one cares about.

Those who dismiss God have nothing but oblivion to look forward too. Well, why suffer through this life for that? Why slog through another 50 years of mediocrity and lameness, oh yeah you'll have kids, run up debt, get old and busted and then NOTHING. ANd the thing is everyone who knew you will also be NOTHING. Eventually our sun in about 4 billion years will run out of hydrogen and swell, turning this planet into NOTHING. If we escaped the confines of the Solar System then the eventual Heat death of the universe will close the book on whatever good you did or your Grandmas memory or whatever lameness you're relying on to get by.

The thing is the surgeon/Harvard professor, who was also a Christian, should have had the conversation sewn up. I was spewing out defenses and agruements that would have had that athiest scratching his head, instead the Christian says he cannot answer the problem of evil! What?!! What good is our faith if you cannot answer the most basic of questions?! You can't understand why there is evil in the world and an all powerful/all good God? Sad. Very sad.

Well there I was shouting at the TV. "Come on!!!!", I'd shout. "You can't answer that?!" "Some one shut that Jungian Analyst up!" "If she says one more think about God's shadow I'm going to puke!" yeah...Papa Proteinstar here I am.

Well I didn't get any of my Saturday homework done. I have a presentation due Sat and I'll be doing it Friday night. Love that procrastination. Speaking of which I had a report due to the church this week. yikes. I'll have that in Boss.

In Response

BROADBAND THANK GOD!!!

I'm back I'm back I'm back I'm back I'm back I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DSL is finally up and running and I can finally finally stream music and surf at the same time.

I swear my music soul was shriveling up into a little knotted hunk of tissue, a little longer and I would have been to far gone to enjoy Death Cab for Cutie.

And Shoop...kudos for listening to F.F. I didn't know you had it in you. Specially with a song like Micheal...a little light in the loafers it always sounded to me.

On the UrbanDead front, my zombie has killed 2 people in one night and received his 1st skill. Vigour Mortis. Now I can kill with ease, well shambling decomposing ease.

The Fam is here this weekend...dedicating the youngest member of the Brood. The Proteinstar clan continues it's expansion.

Hey Shoop, HOMM V looks like it will have a DVD and CD version so pick wisely this Feb.

Tomorrow's youth group lesson will be based off of the conversation between Motti and Vader in Episode IV. Gotta love talks about faith involving the Dark Lord.

"don't try to fool us with your sorcerors ways Lord Vader!"

Paraphrasing Herbert

Heroes of Might and Magic is the little Time killer.

You could not believe the amount of time at night I've spent trying to coach my blundering army of undead to capture 3 nearby castles. It's been horrible. But I have only 1 to go.

Between grad school, 2 girls, youth group, my wife, Heroes, and Urban Dead, I've had zero time for blogging.

A travesty I know. And it will be soon rectified.

The 3rd wave of heroscape figures came out. I haven't bought a single figure from wave 2. sniff. This wave rocks. A bunch of Scottish highlanders, some futury agent dudes, a cowboy and some crazy robot thing. I am way behind. Hopefully they'll be around for Christmas.

My bro and I are finally starting up a D&D campaign. The Spouse of Proteinstar is less than pleased. But at least it's free!

I will hereby be know as Gregory Thurmaturgus, Paladin, and all-a-round good guy.

5 pts for the 1st person to comment on who and when Greg was about.

Ah yes, mounted combat and religious zealotry in all it's glory.

OUT OF THE WAY PECK!

Amen!

September 14, 2005
Failure of an Idea -- And a People
By David Brooks

In his 1935 State of the Union Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(FDR) spoke to a nation mired in the Depression, but still marinated
in conservative values:

"Continued dependence" upon welfare, said FDR, "induces a spiritual
disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To
dole our relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle
destroyer of the human spirit."

Behind FDR's statement was the conviction that, while the government
must step in in an emergency, in normal times, men provide the food,
clothing and shelter for their families.

And we did, until the war pulled us out of the Depression and a
postwar boom made us, in John K. Galbraith's phrase, The Affluent
Society. By the 1960s, America, the richest country on earth, was
growing ever more prosperous. But with the 1964 landslide of LBJ,
liberalism triumphed and began its great experiment.

Behind the Great Society was a great idea: to lift America's poor out
of poverty, government should now take care of all their basic needs.
By giving the poor welfare, subsidized food, public housing and free
medical care, government will end poverty in America.

At the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center, we saw the failure
of 40 years of the Great Society. No sooner had Katrina passed by and
the 17th Street levee broke than hundreds of young men who should have
taken charge in helping the aged, the sick and the women with babies
to safety took to the streets to shoot, loot and rape. The New Orleans
police, their numbers cut by deserters who left their posts to look
after their families, engaged in running gun battles all day long to
stay alive and protect people.

It was the character and conduct of its people that makes the New
Orleans disaster unique. After a hurricane, people's needs are simple:
food, water, shelter, medical attention. But they can be hard to meet.

People buried in rubble or hiding in attics of flooded homes are tough
to get to. But, even with the incompetence of the mayor and governor,
and the torpor of federal officials, this was possible.

Coast Guard helicopters were operating Tuesday. There were roads open
into the city for SUVs, buses and trucks. While New Orleans was
flooded, the water was stagnant. People walked through to the
convention center and Superdome. The flimsiest boat could navigate.

Even if government dithered for days -- what else is new -- this does
not explain the failure of the people themselves!

Between 1865 and 1940, the South -- having lost a fourth of its best
and bravest in battle, devastated by war, mired in poverty -- was
famous for the hardy self-reliance of her people, black and white.

In 1940, hundreds of British fishermen and yachtsmen sailed back and
forth daily under fire across a turbulent 23-mile Channel to rescue
300,000 soldiers from Dunkirk. How do we explain to the world that a
tenth of that number of Americans could not be reached in four days
from across a stagnant pond?

The real disaster of Katrina was that society broke down. An entire
community could not cope. Liberalism, the idea that good intentions
and government programs can build a Great Society, was exposed as
fraud. After trillions of tax dollars for welfare, food stamps, public
housing, job training and education have poured out since 1965,
poverty remains pandemic. But today, when the police vanish, the
community disappears and men take to the streets to prey on women and
the weak.

Stranded for days in a pool of fetid water, almost everyone waited for
the government to come save them. They screamed into the cameras for
help, and the reporters screamed into the cameras for help, and the
"civil rights leaders" screamed into the cameras that Bush was
responsible and Bush was a racist.

Americans were once famous for taking the initiative, for having young
leaders rise up to take command in a crisis. See any of that at the
Superdome? Sri Lankans and Indonesians, far poorer than we, did not
behave like this in a tsunami that took 400 times as many lives as
Katrina has thus far.

We are the descendants of men and women who braved the North Atlantic
in wooden boats to build a country in a strange land. Our ancestors
traveled thousands of miles in covered wagons, fighting off Indians
far braver than those cowards preying on New Orleans' poor.

Watching that performance in the Crescent City, it seems clear: We are
not the people our parents were. And what are all our Lords Temporal
now howling for? Though government failed at every level, they want
more government.

FDR was right. A "spiritual disintegration" has overtaken us.
Government-as-first provider, the big idea of the Great Society, has
proven to be "a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

Either we get off this narcotic, or it kills us.

Mike Peabody
The Evans Group, LLC
918-606-3329

Concept Art for Sylvan and Academy Factions!

OH YES!

These guys look great. And is that gremlin holding a blunderbuss? Ubisoft might be French but I love them.

First Academy.

Master Gremlin, Obsidian Gargoyle.



Now that gargoyl is looking mighty weird but I trust them, it'll be cool.
Next Golem, and Mage (man they look good!)




Now the biggies. A replacement for the naga, and a good one at that. And the Titan got a whole new bada** image.




Man that took some work...ok since I love you here are the Sylvan units!

The level 1 unit is a spirit, like a nymph. And a War Dancer (some elf sword dude)




I do not miss the stupid leprechauns. Whose brainchild was that?
The next two are a ranged elf (i think) and um...something else.



it's hard to make a walking tree look cool. I like the swirling etchings though.
next is a unicorn and druid.



FINALLY



They look great. Shoop, it will be an all out brawl to get that first copy. Even if it is just you an me.

Might and Magic 5

They just released concept and screenshots for the Dungeon faction! Looks great!!!

Take 3 parts Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves and 2 parts HOMM and presto! You have these newly revised faction. Lead by dark elves ..well here, look for yourself...




and the piece de resistance!


Well actually the shadow upgradeable to black dragon would be that but the image was immense. These guys rock. The last 2 games with harpies and beholders were completely lame, I hated playing them. This game is going to be great.

They also released two other factions but no info on them. Sylvan (elves) and the Academy which seems to have a very similiar creature line up to Heroes 3.

The screenshots look great. Feb get here quick!

The living Dead!!!

Just discovered a brand new online game. It's free, a low tech for sure but the gameplay is great!

It's called Urban Dead
and it's awesome.

basically you start the game by making a character, one of 3 military types, several scientific positions, or civilians (cops, firefighters, normal people) or a zombie.

Every person and zombie in the game is a real player. The cool thing is, if a human is killed they become a zombie, and the zombies can get experience and better skills etc. Zombies with aid from scientists can be turned back to humans it's really cool.

You can read logs of huddled groups of survivors trapped in a mall with hundreds of player zombies trying to bash the doors in. Low level zombies are unable to open doors but higher level zombies begin to regain memories and can open doors, so players ahve to make larger and larger barricades to keep the zombies out of their ransackled bunker.

Right now my cop is out of ammo and hold up in the Birmingham Hotel. I have the doors secure but against a larger pack of zombies I'm dead! The neighborhood is quiet for now, although the church down the street is packed with bodies. I've only I could get into the gun store down the block.

I heard that the local precinct was completely overrun. 30 people wiped out in one night. Word of advice, don't sleep in police stations.

Yeah I know this isn't healthy for me.

Fwd:

George was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place.

Looking up toward heaven, he said "Lord, take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of my life and give up tequila."

Miraculously, a parking place appeared.

George looked up again and said, "Never mind. I found one."

Birthdays of Sept 9th

Deion Sanders 1967
Adam Sandler 1966
Hugh Grant 1960
Micheal Keaton 1951
Tom Wopat, Luke from Dukes of Hazzard 1951
George Roger Waters, Pink Floyd 1943
William Bligh, captain of the HMS Bounty 1754


and the crown jewel

Cardinal Richelieu, 1585

he said this

"If you give me six lines written
by the most honest man, I will find
something in them to hang him."

Known for his crushing of a Huguenot rebellion.

Great guy to share a birthday with.

And he's FRENCH!

WHOLE CRAP!

Read about a new project that includes germ-line genetic engineering. I shouldn't have to explain the major problems with this sort of research.

Vacations Done...Now the Real Work begins

Yup. I'm back from RI. The whole ProteinClan is back. Suntanned and exfoliated from the glorious beaches of the Ocean State.

Tomorrow The Spouse of Proteinstar starts school. I start watching The Brood.

Saints protect me.

Ubisoft has released the creatures for the necropolis. The ghosts look great. No death knights though.

Looks like another P2P is going to bite the dust. Kazaa lost a major court battle. In the end the music industry is going to lose. Information is so easily obtained today tomorrow will be even easier. File sharing will continue to to go further and further underground. Until the industry realizes that paying nearly $20 bucks for a 1 dollar album is insane they will lose.

A compnay named Mashboxx is kind of neat in that it allows you to listen to a track several times before deciding the purchase. It's nice to hear the whole thing rather than 20 seconds. Unfortunately they only have Sony in their corner.

I'm taking 3 courses this semester. Saturday goes from 8am to 5pm. And I thought those guys in Abu Ghraib had it bad. I'd wear womens underwear on my head to waive these courses.

Good to see Shoop posting 5 days apart. Sorry Matt for that diatribe about #16, that's what you were trolling for though right?

Well that's about it. I'm reading some "non-fiction" book about the Ark of the Convenant. It mentions the Urim and Thummim. Yeah those are magical stones mentioned by Joesph Smith. Any book that gets it's "factual" information from a prophet from 1830 who has since given prophetic utterings which have been found false is useless. Check your sources Randall!

Yeah I promise to one of these days actually write a blog post that isn't ADD.

Here's a Proteinstar insight.

The majority of the people evacuated from New Orleans where horribly poor. Most were renters. With their place of residence completely destroyed and their jobs gone they have no reason to return. The only people who can afford to return to that city once it is rebuilt will be the wealthy or those with valuable technical skills. It being a major port city would of course require dockworkers and the like. New Orleans may have cleaned itself of it's massive poverty problem by foisting the dispossessed and poor on the likes of Houston and Baton Rouge. With the help of government aid the city will rebuild, with major adaptations, ie. no more slums in the low lands. I think in 5 to 10 years that city will be a BOOMING tourism town, hailed for it's utopian qualities. The liberal democrats claiming it a victory for their modern and progressive policies...all the while missing the very truth that it was the local liberal government that failed the very people they claimed to support. Rather that deal with underdeveloped canals and levees they focused on giant floating casinos. Rather than dealing with government aid cuts by selling bonds to raise funds for their cities required protection, they drew up plans for a huge casino island in the middle of their lake. Rather than develop functioning methods for evacuating their populace they blame the federal government for not doing what they should have.

They fell for their own lie that life is Mardi Gras, and did nothing about their sinking city.

There, that's a poignant little rant.

Mission accomplished.

Just a few things.

Got A's in my first 2 grad courses at Alvernia. Very easy. I'm taking 3 more this Fall. Why doesn't Messiah offer grad courses? It's 10 times the school Alvernia is.

My youngest daughter now exceeds 10 lbs. She is calmer, will allow me to hold her, and is nearly sleeping through the night. Right before the Spouse of Proteinstar goes back to teach.

I might be getting my hands on a little videocard with a pipeline that's twice my current Geforce.

Add 512 more Ram and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is looking real good. As in perhaps my machine can play it with half it's glory.

Heading up to the Ocean State this week. Hopefully Katrina just sends some waves.

Kids screaming...gotta work.

Discovered what EGTY is.

SPAM.

Yup. It's called comment spam and their hitting blogs. The more links they can make for their product the higher on the internet search listings it will be, or so they hope. Blogs being a slightly different animal it might not work quite the way they want. Wired had an article on it.

Anyway, if you care to look I've deleted all references to a certain stock product and have also instituted a word verification program in order to thwart spambots in the future. I hope it doesn't cut down on all those nice comments I really do care for.

Yikes it's what time in the morning?!

That pretty much sums up my evenings of late.

Jumped into a great game of Farcry and have been playing like a god for 3 days straight.

I had been stuck for months at this one portion, 6 guys onto me and I just couldn't kill them all. So I stopped. Early this week I picked it up again and rushed through them like a hot knife through congealed milk.

I'm at the end now I can feel it, gigantic mutant soldier things with rocket launchers in a even bigger battle raging across the island chain. I'm driving this jeep thing around flaming trucks and exploding dudes. Mercenaries flying through the air screaming. Awesome.

So anyway, just wanted to touch base with this nearly useless factoid about my current gaming experience.

Oh and The Spouse of Proteinstar and I kicked some serious butt in Puerto Rico. Love that game.

Hey Superswede going to Gencon with me next Summer?

We really missed you Tues.

And a certain lady friend.

I could kiss him

My brother came through in spades today. Braving the hordes of gamers and intense "geek reek" he was able to procure a limited edition Gencon 2005 only Heroscape figure. He's beautiful and will actually make my sword gruts playable.

Thank you dearest bro.

In my world I am single mindedly focused on 3 things. OK well not so single minded. Heroes of Might and Magic V (thats number 1), Heroscape and the zillions of expansions for it (thats 2), the third being either Turbine's Middleearth Online or collecting every aspect of Supremacy.

Tomorrow I will most likely take part in the Mt. Gretna Art festival. Good gracious I've released information about my current whereabouts! Well, as it turns out I have to drive hundreds of miles in a nondisclosed direction to reach the art festival. Boy, that was close.

It's been a busy night

My brother has just arrived in Indianapolis for Gencon.

My sister got her Civic destroyed by some drunk and she's finally back from the ER.

And I squandered a couple hours watching an XPN music video montage called Garden State.

yeah yeah Braff was his normal, lithiumed to the gills, self. But man did Portman telegraph that performance. She stank (I've never been impressed with her acting..."Anakin! You are breaking my heart!" Well most of that suckage belongs on Lucas). Ian Holm was awesome as usual.

But my main beef was the music. It was like Braff wanted an excuse to show America what his current playlist was on his i-pod. No wonder Rolling Stone loved it. Coldplay, Remy Zero, The Shins (although I liked Know your onion). And he gives a little nod to the lounge scene with lebanese blonde by Thievery Corp (those 2 have a nice little club in DC). The album that track comes from is really good but I don't know where my copy got to.

Don't get me wrong, I like these groups and their music but it was so jarring. Several scenes were only about a particular song. I'll watch VH1 thanks. On second thought, I won't. I'll listen to XPN, um...nah...it's a telethon.

With that said, I really enjoyed every scene with Ian Holm. The father son relationship was great.

Ok, review done.

There's a new link...www.mikefranchina.com. I don't think i's up till after Gencon.

Man I wish I was there.

Oh and www.mightandmagic.com just released screenshots of necropolis. Yeah..I'm in love. Looks like Ubisoft took a page from Gamesworkshop when it comes to vampires. Looks great.

Oh and my sis should be ok. Right sis?

I'm back!

A one week vacation with family. AT points I thought I'd need a vacation from the one I was taking. But all in all...it was great.

Long Beach Island, although a hive of human residence, has some very nice beaches. And being only 40 feet from the beach makes them that much nicer.




The body surfing was intense. I suffered bodily injuries to horrible to relate. Ask Rover if you really need to know...even he will probably hedge.

How about this for exciting...live ...action...AEON FLUX.

Yeah, just had to order the old animated from Netflix.

Man I love the movies.

Um...I'm here...not sentient.. but here.

hi guys, A 3 week old is draining. Seriously.

Grad class, BK, Youth group. Ugh.

Just watched a movie called The Yes Men. It's a documentary about a bunch of guys who posed as the WTO. It's crazy to explain but the started a webpage called www.gatt.org

And if you visit both sites you'll see something interesting. They are identical. Except one makes fun of the WTO and the other one IS the WTO. These guys had all sorts of hug conglomerations thinking they were the legitimate thing. They were invited to huge conferences, spoke on MSNBC as if they were the WTO. Their hijinks are now legendary. I recommend it.

I was going to post something else but I completely forgot what.

I'm going to the beach next weekend, thank goodness. I have to come back early for grad class. Bummer.

I"M FIRST!

EA has just announced that it will be making Battle for Middle Earth II.

Furthermore, they announced that have received the rights to the literary properties in addition to the movies. We can look forward to huge Elven armies and Dwarven armies led by old Oaky himself! Melkor vs Sauron can be put to rest for good!

SMAUG!!!!!!!!!!!

I need a bucket. My head just popped.

Constantine

This was going to be a simple review of the movie Constantine, not a nightmare of Proustian duration. But I decided against it and wanted to focus on Hollywood's obsession with the Zoroastrian religion.

Simply put Zoroastrianism was and still is a religion based in Persia about 600BC. Considered a monotheistic faith it puts great stock in the concept of dualities.

They posit that since anything evil cannot come from God that it is from something else and that something is given, in the ancient Zoroastrian forms, an entity of equal stature to God. I say ancient forms because the more modern Zoroastrian writings do not consider the two to be balanced.

Recent movies about hell and Satan and all that, and this list is hardly exhaustive: Devil's Advocate, The End of Days, Spawn, Constantine, to name a few recent ones.

The majority play out in a world where God and Satan are warring over the souls of mankind. Satan is always pulling some, Third Reich 4th quarter crazy play, in which some poor lady is impregnated with his seed, (ala Anti-Christ) and now the whole world is threatened and everyone, including God, is relying on one underdog hero to stop it.

The day God needs us is the day He is no longer God. "What does God need with a spaceship?"

Constantine pulls a concept out of the book of Job in which God and Satan have a wager about Job's enduring faith. The movie extends this wager to include all of humanity and makes the outcome uncertain.

It makes for a thrilling movie but I am so glad our world doesn't work like that.

A tangent I know, the day I get my html code to play a stinking wav file will be the day the Lord returns. So if you hear some tinny voice projecting out of your speakers the day you visit again get ready!

War of the Worlds

"...intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us."

Ah the smooth vernacular of 1898, how it traipses across the tongue and palate. Mr. H.G. Wells created a novel of such horrifying substance that even a century later we are still frightened by it.

With that said I will begin my analysis of Steven Speilberg's latest creation.

I will start with significant departures from the book. I will keep this piece to only major plot changing alterations as it is a given that the medium of film is quite different than the written and as such must be treated differently.

1. The Martians have been on earth before mankind. Or at the very least their machinery of war. It is stated that the Tripods were buried "millions of years ago". HG Wells has them arrive by "shells" as if they were literally fired from a canon.

Problems with this change? Tons. If the Martians had already been here to plant their machinery in advanced preparation of exterminating us once we became the dominate species than why not just settle here anyway. Populate both Mars and Earth at the same time? The environment hasn't changed significantly enough to warrant waiting. Not at least in comparison to Mar's environment. It's been like that for millions of years, perhaps billions. In addition, if they have already been here and are studying us so carefully then they should have some concept of single cellular life. We have them in our guts. They make up the foundations of our entire ecosystems which provide us with life. You mean to tell me advanced creatures from another planet who have already been here are not aware of bacteria? They have no clue about disease and they have been studying us as a species since we came on the scene? Please.

Even if they were not resistant to our microbes, do you honestly think they could not have made those amazing sophisticated machines hermetically sealed? They would have space suits if they needed them.

But doesn't HG Wells run into this problem? Nope. Why? The Martians have never been here before. They have been viewing us as we view Mars, by massive telescopes (remember this was written in 1898). They understand our ways of basic society, where we live, how we war. They have no concept as to our physiological natures or that of our fellow species. They know the constituents of the air and the size of our planet, it's gravitational pull and atmospheric pressures. Physics. They are totally taken by surprise by our pico-sized friends. HG Wells must have assumed that there was no such entities as bacteria on Mars, otherwise his Martians would have expected as much on earth.

Furthermore, what is the chance of mankind not stumbling upon one of these buried Tripods? They've been here for millions of years and yet erosion and changes in the courses of rivers has not exposed one? The drilling of oil shafts, subway tunnels, and quarries has never turned upon one of these titanic beings. Just how deep where they? Not terribly as was shown in the scene when it first appears in the movie.

2. The Tripods were dead-on. I was proud of those things. Menacing and titanic and yet still resembling HG Wells descriptions. Very cool. The Tripods did 3 things to eliminate man from the face of the earth in the book. They fire their super cool heat ray (singular), they collect people and stick them in jar-like canisters, and they spray a black gas that poisons and kills people. In the movie they do only 2, they fire their heat rays (plural) and they collect people and stick them in cages for future use as fertilizer for their red vines.

I don't mind the extra heat ray, it looked cool. Collecting people in cages is neat, no black toxic clouds, ok. Pumping out peoples blood for use as fertilizer? What the...?

What is that but simply a chance for gratuitous gore and not even that since the whole scene is hidden behind a tractor? Who would have thought that our blood chemistry makes great Miracle Grow for those red ropy vines from ANOTHER PLANET!? Dumb. And lets say that it wasn't fertilizer but fluid food, suspension media, for the pilots of the Tripod. Which would explain the massive gush of red fluid from within the capsule when opened at the end. What did they do before they started collecting people? And why not make the operation selfcontained. Why not have that long tentacle arm thing that appears in the cage just harpoon them there and suck out the blood? Just a dumb scene.

The vines are never explained. At first I thought they meant that the people were being transformed into them, now that would be gross. Maybe they were. Moving on.

Forcefields make sense. HG Wells was way to early to have even thought of such a farout concept but back then a massive walking titan with a heat ray was more than a match for early howitzers. I mean whats the firing rate on those ancient guns? In fact in the book the military actually takes out a few. One lucky shot hits one Tripod in the knee and brings it down. And I think a battleship in the Thames takes out another.

If the Tripods didn't have forcefields then they all would have been toasted by thousands of cruise missiles fired from deep sea subs. So although it's kind of Independence Dayish we'll let it slide.

Now that instance when Cruise is getting sucked up by that giant sphincter (Evolution was just screaming at me) and he blows up the whole Tripod with 2 grenades. Nice but come on! 2 grenades wouldn't blow up an Abrams Tank from the inside. That Tripod was huge and a grenade in it's sphincter chamber blows the whole thing up?! Well it looked cool though.

Did you notice though that this scene was the only one in which mankind kills a FULLY FUNCTIONING tripod? It's done by some hopeless schmuck loaded with explosives getting eaten. During the movie a person mentions that in Osaka Japan they were reported as having killed several Tripods. What people perfected the kamikaze attack which is exactly what Cruise did? I think that's awesome. Japanese soldiers getting eaten on purpose and loaded down with explosives to blow the Martians to kingdom come.

The heatray effects were cool. I liked the concept of the body being vaporized and the clothing that wasn't incinerated by direct contact just getting blown away by the force of the blast. All that ash was disturbing.

The scene with the church steeple falling was from the book, except it was shot by the heat ray from quite a distance and wasn't toppled because the Tripod was underneath it. And honestly if a huge soccerfield sized sinkhole opened up at my feet I would be hustling my little self out of there. And you can definitely be sure that if a massive 6-7 story alien walker crawls out of it I am way gone! Those NJ morons just stood around! What did they think it was? The Transit authority putting in a new subway station? Unlikely Mr. Spielberg.

3. Flaming Amtrak was cool.

4. That battle with the Hummers. Weak. They should have at least shown it. They could have made it horrendous. With those sad little trucks just getting pounded. Then a quick cut to a bunch more hummers driving over the hill without any clue what happened to their brethren. Honestly, those things get blown up by cellphones strapped to old mortar shells, like they could do squat against those beasts?

5. Although the aliens were not tentacle squamous octopus things they still looked cool. And I suppose it makes sense that they have 3 legs like their walkers. Just like we have 4 wheels like our cars...Wait...

6. How sweet that the whole family survived. Especially Robbie. Um dude didn't that entire hill get napalmed? Where the heck did you go to survive that disaster. Deus Ex Machina...gotta love it.

7. The scene in the farmhouse...too long with a guy that looked to much like Tim Robbins. They could have truncated that thing by 15 minutes and lost that whole gotta kill the raving idiot scene.

8. It would have been great to have had a scene from the International Space station looking down on earth getting smeared, the astronauts losing contact with each other's respective bases.

Man I should be a director, or at least an author.

9. I'm not bothering to talk about the car's ability to drive when no one else could. The movie explained that fine. I do think that when a Jumbo Jet falls on your house the chances of your van surviving should be close to zero. If it does survive the chances that a clear path should be made between the 2 halves of the fuselage and the wings should be nil.

10. The tipping ferry was neat. But seriously, what idiot packs onto a boat full of people when giant walking machines of death are marching all over the place. HERE WE ARE! ALL IN ONE PLACE! IN WATER! LIKE FISH IN A BARREL! COME KILL US!

11. The scene with all the floating bodies was neat. But where did they come from? Heat rays don't leave bodies. Did a dam burst or something? A bridge collapse upstream? Well I suppose those are highly likely. OK not a nitpick.

12. Um...where were the nukes? If I was the President and this must be the first alien invasion movie not to include a President, I would be nuking everything.

13. I find it interesting that creatures who live on a planet with a different atmosphere than ours, not to mention temperature. Could walk around without any issues.

Mars

95.3% carbon dioxide (CO2),
2.7% nitrogen (N2),
1.6% argon (Ar),
0.15% oxygen (O2),
0.08% Carbon monoxide (CO),
Surface pressure 1-9 millibars, depending on altitude; average 6 mb

Earth
78% Nitrogen (N2)
21% Oxygen (O2)
1% Argon (Ar)
0-7% water vapor (H2O)
0-0.01% Ozone (O3) both the H20 and O3 should be tiny 2's and 3's.
0.01-0.1% Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Surface pressure 1013 millibars, depending on altitude of course.

The surface pressure of earth is the equivalent of 14.7 lbs per square inch. Mar's is about 1/150th of that. For a Martian it would be like breathing mud.

Did HG Wells know this? Nope...Should Spielberg...you bet.

The only way it could work is if the Martians breath Argon and the other elements have zero effect on them. Yeah not likely.

Oh and the average temp on Mars. -63 Celsius!!!! Celsius!!! Whole Crap! They would have been hotter than a monkey's bum down here!!

But honestly HG Wells did mention the aliens complete discomfort and lack of mobility while within the crater trying to assemble the Tripod. Score 1 for HG!

Well it's after midnight and I'm sure I could go on.

My opinion of the movie. Good not great. It could have been great if it wasn't so summer time popcorn fun. Or STPF as I like to say stupf pronounced st-upf. As in stupid with a F and no id. yeah that's stupid.

Liked the big explosions. Whatever that city was in NJ, they got hammered. I loved seeing entire buildings just get shredded by that beam. Cool.

The book is by far superior and it's also free domain being over 70 years old. I think that's how long it takes to be free domain. Which means Conan is up in 2007! YES!

Props to my Homeboy!

Well my good bud Mr. Shoop turned one year older yesterday. And in honor of him I am contributing a list of famous and not so famous people who share his date of birth. The sad thing is, he will know 3 of these people at best. This is for you SHOOP!

1952 David Hasselhoff. The beau of Germany. The croaner of the Rhineland. The Knight Rider. I'm sorry Shoop, not much of a start.

Although he rode in K.I.T.T. That's something.

1947 Camilla Parker. Who? Prince Charles' mistress chick. yeah definately getting worse.

1934 Donald Sutherland.



Um.. yeah he's old and stuff.








1917 Phyllis Diller. I could only find one picture of her.
Dude you have the worst birthday buddies.

1912 Art Linkletter. Even I don't have a clue.

1900 James Cagney. Yeah Great. Well I saved the best for last. Here's some one you can be proud to share a birthdate with.

1674 Isaac Watts. The man.

He was an English pastor, preacher, poet, and hymn writer. Wrote about 600 hymns including When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Am I a Soldier of the Cross, and Joy to the World. Considered the founder of English hymnody and children's hymnody. Published books of poetry, hymns, and three volumes of theological discourses.

The best part though was during the Revolutionary War.
In an attack upon Springfield when the patriots' wadding gave out, Rev. James Caldwell (of Huguenot descent) ran into the Presbyterian church returning with his arms and pockets crammed full with Watts' Psalms and Hymns saying, "Now, boys, give them Watts!"


This is where the term "give him/her/them/it what(watt) for!" comes from.

Well Shoop for the most part your birthday buddies suck but good old Wattsy there just saved the day. I was seriously hoping for a dude named Lothar from Norway born around 1228 or something. Oh well.

Those who took their first breath on April 7th.

My eldest daughter was born on April 7th, 2003. It snowed. She weighed 3.5 lbs.

Victoria Adams was born in 1975. She is now known as "Posh Spice" and married a soccer player.

Jack Black was born in 1969. He's a lot older than I thought. He'll be photographing a giant gorilla some time this fall/winter.

Russell Crowe was born in 1964 and beat the obstetrician over the head with a bedpan.

Jackie Chan was born in 1954, apparently 2 months late and weighing close to 13 pounds. yeah right. He also is a huge pop star and has released 100 songs in 20 albums since 1984. Ugh.

Billie Holiday was born in 1915. She died in a hospital in 1959. Boooorrrriiiinggg.

W. K. Kellogg was born in 1860.

That's the guy over there. Pretty handsome, why the ditched him for the rooster I'll never know.

And finally Francis Xavier 1506. He was a Jesuit Priest/Saint who traveled to India, Malaysia and Japan.













Man my family rocks. Well the folks that we share birthdates with rock. I even left out a bunch, like the bassist for The Grateful Dead. yeah. Should have kept him out.

On the First of May

2 Playboy Playmates where born..don't ask which ones.

Calamity Jane aka Martha Burke was born in 1852. The infamous indian fighter/frontier adventurer. How perfect that my wife shares her birthdate?

George Inness was born in 1825. You know that super famous painter? You don't know? Well maybe this will refresh your memory.

No?

Well that's your own stupid ignorant fault.

Moving on.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1764.
He was an engineer/architect.

He built this big building with stone bearing masonry and a cast iron dome in a neoclassical style.
Does that help? Think da da ta da ta da da ta da da da da. Hail To The Chief? That's chief not thief.

Does this help?













And finally a person of note that Mr Shoop should find remarkably interesting...

Magnus VI Lagabuter, King of Norway, born 1238.

My wife has some of the coolest birthday buddies.

In the city of Harrisburg is born this day...

Can I say that? Well I have a few fleeting moments tonight, at midnight, to post to the world, well the 4 people who read this, that my second daughter has been born.

Her name is Rian Elizabeth. She weighed 8 lbs 2.5 oz and was approximately 19 inches long, that measurement I think is a bit short for an eight pound baby but whatever.

I'm thinking she's got that older Marlon Brando look. Abby had the priceline.com William Shatner look down pat when she was 8 lbs. I don't know what it is about my daughters and overweight has been male actors at this stage.

I decided to check online, with the gobs of free time I have, and see what other notables share Rian's esteemed birthdate. Frankly I was shocked, and in a bad way, until I got to 1895 and earlier.

Phil Kramer of Iron Butterfly was born in 1952 on July 12th. You know. "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida baby!!" Except he was part of the reformed '70's Iron Butterfly and amounted to pretty much nothing. Until they found his skeletal remains in his 1993 Ford Aerostar in May 1999, so he amounted to even less than nothing, besides the Unsolved Mysteries episodes. Ugh.

Richard Simmons was born in 1948 and if it hadn't been for the following notables I would almost wish she had been born 7 hours and 27 minutes earlier.
RICHARD SIMMONS FOR WHOLE CRAPS SAKE!!!!

Andrew Wyeth was born in 1917 and is a rather famous painter. Here's a famous painting by him.


Yup famous and stuff, pretentious artist people talk about his stuff.

Now to the cool people.

R. Buckminster Fuller 1895, who is he you say? The inventor of the geodesic dome. Ooooh yeeeaaah. Epcot Center baby. But better yet, a unique carbon structure with insane practical uses was named after him, Buckminsterfullerene or C60. It has 60 carbon atoms in it. A large carbon molecule shaped like a geodesic dome, ala the name. Used for just about everything in the future.

AND....drumroll please....

Henry David Thoreau 1817. Oh yeah man, Walden Pond and all that. He was a bit too naturalisticy for me but still! Could you get a better guy than he for a birthday buddy?

Well actually you can, wait till I name drop the dudes born on my date of birth. It's a whole crapfest of major celebrities. None of that Phil Kramer Unsolved Mysteries nonsense. But first the rest of my fam and then me, the head, the paternal unit, the lord of the manor. So tune in all this week for

FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO SHARE BIRTHDATES WITH PROTEINSTARS FAMILY EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!

But back to the point of this post. The Proteinstar clan has increased again. Soon we will repopulate the land with my perfect seed.

I'm at my PC and have to post

not about anything pertinent just some whimsical ramblings. I watched 2 episodes of Battlestar Galactica today. Not the old one back in '78 and '79

This is the new SCI/FI original series. yeah original series my butt.

Tell you what though, they made Starbuck a chick. And the leader of the Cylons is some hot lady in red. Cable certainly wanted to up the sex appeal.
But at least they have more than 3 dogfighting scenes.

Man that got repetitive.

But their use of 'frak' never did.

Anyway my point being is this. The original series spawned a RTS called Homeworld, about a huge fleet of ships trying to find their home. Exact same storyline as BSG. The music was amazing. Huge Orchestral, slightly ephemeral and trancelike at times. Really spacy, and big. Now the NEW BSG is out and guess what it's soundtrack sound like? Yup, Homeworld's, whose gameplay was based on the original BSG story.

That's all I wanted to say...go about your business.

Oh and I'm planning on having a huge flaming Phoenix tattooed on my back.



I loved HOMM2.

The Phoenix

I was reading Clement of Rome today. He was an early church father, one of the ante-Nicaean Fathers to be specific. He mentions a particular animal in his first epistle. The Phoenix. He uses it as an analogy but in it's description shows that he believes the creature exists in nature. I was amazed.

A major church leader of the early Christian church believes in a bird that consumes itself in flames and is reborn?! So I read up a little further. It's crazy but this thing, although most likely did not exist, was considered real by many big time historical figures.

It's first mentioned by Hesiod in the 8th century B.C., Ovid talks about it, Plutarch, Herodotus of Halicarnassus says he hasn't seen it physically but some priests he knows in Egypt did. Tacitus, that major historian writes about it.

Turns out early christians utilized the symbolism of the Phoenix to represent Christ's death and resurrection. How about that for a church emblem?

We focus on the fish and lamb but the Phoenix was used as well in early Christian churches as a secret symbol during the persecutions.

I thought that was cool. A whole new trend in Christian tattoo. Massive flaming Phoenix! It's Christ!!!



Also cool is that Christ ransacked the temple twice not once as is commonly thought. John 2 :13-17 has him kicking merchant butt right after the wedding feast at Cana (his first biblically recorded miracle) and Matthew 21:12-13 tells of Christ messing up the moneychangers after his Triumphal entry near the end of his ministry.

Something so important he had to do it twice. Also shows why the crowds turned so ugly in a week. Hosanna!!! (make a whip, beat up moneychangers) Crucify him!!!

Talk about fickle.

What another post already?

Look at the second hand of the clock...memorize it's location...ok now read..

Well, I haven't much to say. It's not a bad thing. Meaning only that my brain is storing it's ideolect for a better time and place in which to spew forth it's verbose aggregation in a glorious show of pedantry.

Wasn't that refreshing? Heck the very usage of the word pedantry is pedantry. I love the english language. How in order to say the word Hum you have to, in actuality, hum to produce the word. Speaking of Hum they were a pretty cool space rock band. No Failure mind you but cool.

Yeah a waste of your time I know. Perhaps this is the entire point of this post and so I conclude:

Look at the second hand on the clock, mark it's location.

This post, if you read at about my pace, has taken you 25 seconds to read.

If yours is less than 25 seconds CONGRATULATIONS! you read faster than Proteinstar!

If yours was more than 25 seconds well you're stupid probably have some brain damage.



Hey who wants to buy me a set of headphones? Anyone?

A nice pair of Grado SR 80's? Please?

Only $95.00, you won't find a better set of cans on the market for that price. Not even for $300.

No? Well maybe for Christmas.

That reviewing gig isn't happening yet anyway.

Topic?

What to talk about? Frances major defeat when London took the 2012 Olympics? The fact that circumsion gives a 70% increase in AIDS protection, 40% better than the ideal AIDS vaccine? Should I comment on Bush crashing his bike into some hapless Scottish cop?

nah. Although I knew not having that foreskin was some kind of bonus.

Got back from a service project with my Junior High youth. Great time. I tore up plastic crates for fun and profit. Although it looks like I opened a crankcase with my bare hands, they are seriously beat up and filthy. I've washed them 4 times and still can't get this rust off them.

I'm expecting a serious case of tetanus to set in. Good old Clostridium tetani. Makes for a nice permament breakdancing pose.
Just like this dude. There is a way better picture of this in Kline in one of the bacteriology labs. Oh and it's 11% fatal.

The arc is due to the back muscles being more powerful than the abdominal muscles. A neurotoxin produced by C. tetani, tetanospasmin, blocks neurotrasnmitters from the presynaptic membranes of inhibitory nerve synapses producing uncontrollable spasms. Death is due to an inability to breathe when the spasms make respiration impossible.

Well that's all I have to say about that.

On to something less rigid.

I actually like Country music. Not so much the way it sounds but the lyrics. I am completely amazed about how many country songs seem to be speaking all about me. Rock doesn't do that, it's all agnsty "I hate my parents rock", rap is all about the bling and girls in thongs sitting on the hood of my Bentley. But today I heard a song by Lonestar called Mr Mom. It rocked.

Now if only the Cure and the Smiths produced by Orbital and Mixed by Sasha had made it, it would speak to me and rock out all at the same time.

Would you believe aliens abducted me?

How about just my brain? Yup...brainjacked right in midsentence last week. We've been doing donuts and purging our hyperdrive plasma capacitors all over Procyon. A side trip to Regulus for some munchies turn out to be a huge mistake thanks to Gribbleglax and his girlfriend/pseudo-hemaphroditic pedapalp waving gelatin construct. We just called her 'Nasty'. Until she dissolved Fronip and sucked out his insides through his navel. Most of the trip was then spent shaking and desperately attempting not to wet ourselves.

But I'm back. And it's good to be back. No more 'Nasty'. (let me pour some of my fotie out for old Fronip) You the dog Fronip!

There's a ton to comment on. I'll start just before the brainjacking.

My Bronx trip rocked. Lost one kid on the subway, he's terror stricken face as the subway pulled away from the station with him still on it will humor (ahem!) haunt me forever. We had 40 kids come to our youth program where we introduced them to God. Awesome. 8 kids made decisions to follow Christ! Super Awesome. One of my youth learned how to wear a dorag. I prayed on a public street in the middle of the Bronx. Closing my eyes in public has never been so scary when you have 6 Hispanic dudes standing right behind you speaking Spanish and sounding not to friendly.

I bought an I love NYC Geoffrey the Giraffe from Toys R Us. (just pretend the r is backward)

Still working at BK. Ugh.

Having a BBQ tomorrow! Yeah. A Sir Justin Kay being the guest of honor.

I want to be a transhuman.

I googled brainjacking and brought that up. I love futurists.

Well guys, good enough start? I'll get back on the horse and get this thing moving full swing. I need to pop over to that blondheaded Norseman's page. I hear he has a comment list piling up past 25.

Relish this post

It's going to be the last for quite awhile. I'm headed to NYC this week and won't be back till Friday. I'm taking part of my youth group, 8 to be exact, to the Bronx to run a summer Vacation Bible School for the children in the area.

I'll post the outcome when I return. Unless someone pops a cap in my craker dome.

The Da Vinci Code

Started reading yesterday, finished today. Real difficult read. Nothing like blowing through 495 pages of text in about 4 sittings.

Remember when this was all over the place? Bookstores, the Today Show, the Vatican refuses to comment and makes a bigger deal than it already was.

The book was a bit of a let down. All that hoopla and little payoff.

Plus the author states some outrageous things with horrendously poor factual support. yes, yes, it's a novel. But still, fiction or not it should be believeable. Any person with the slightest bit of biblical knowledge and knowledge of the early church could refute 99.8% of this books claims with their hands tied behind their back.

I was just shaking my head at some of the authors comments. Like how the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that the Bible was tampered with because the texts were not similar. WHAT?! Please! the entire book of Isaiah is word for word identical. Text after text showing zero deviation from our present Bible.

Then he says Constatine reconstructed the Bible. Come again? When did that happen? at Nicea? 325 AD? Try again. The concepts of Christ were well established before the Roman Emperor tried to stop those nasty Arians from takeing the god out of the God/Man. Dan Brown states that early Christians believed Christ was only a man and it was Constatine who deified him. What a crock of Whole Crap.

But the book was pretty enagaging, up until I learned the Grail was the body of Mary Magdalene and a bunch of moldy scrolls.

Indiana Jones would kick Robert Langdon's butt.

I give it 6 out of 10 slaps about the face.

Enjoyable reading but annoying about how much he screwed up. Heck he could have made the basis more believable by sticking a little closer to the truth. Templar Knights as tree hugging Druid dudes. Sad. And the Priory of Sion which is this really important clandestine group in the story from like the time of Christ to now, was actually formed in 1950 by 4 Frenchmen. Lame.

Whole Crap

Kind of a side note and not really worth blogging about, but then what the heck is?

Over at Matt's blog there was a bit of censorship and jazz and I got all fired up, cause that's what you do when you're semi-anyonmous and online. And instead of saying Holy Crap! I typed Whole Crap.

For example, a man could be windsurfing and catch some mighty wave and fly into the air only to be bitten in half by a Great White Shark that leapt after him ala Samuel L., his bloody torso then splattering against a ocean liner leaving a great red smear. A tourist on board could exclaim...

Whole crap man that was brutal, did you see that?

I kind of like that better. It's more visual. I have yet to see a piece of crap with some sort of heavenly nimbus. But a solidly formed complete piece of crap I have seen on many an occasion. It could be said that such a piece of fecal matter would be greater than fragmented feces and such would be worthier of higher esteem and thusly would make a great exclamation. So from this day forward I will say Whole Crap.

I'm not asking you to understand.

But for the sake of conversation, mostly about what I'm interested in, I'll divulge some information.

I've been playing a game lately. It's free and web-based. It's entitled...

Kingdom of Loathing

OOOO! Sounds kind of dark and sinister! Well about as dark and sinister as a game in which the main currency is meat and my particular player class is a Pastamancer. A particularly strong one at that. I defeated my Nemesis some time ago and claimed the legendary Colander of Em'Eril. Big stat boost to my magicality. (It's a real stat) With my Kentucky Fried Meat Staff I'm quite the tour de force. I hvae no idea what that means. A star wars bike race?

I'm looking mighty beefy


My bro is a Turtle Tamer. Has some elder turtle on his head and does headbutting damage. I just trained the powerful spell of "Cone of Whatever" Can't wait to see what hellish storm of food products I can rain upon my enemies.

So anyway, I posted a link to it cause it's that awesome.

You want fries with that?

In an effort to recreate my high school years and make a small about of dough on the side, the emphasis on small. I have taken a job at..dum dum duuhhh!!!

Burger King

Yup, flipping dem burgers. Well no flipping actually they cook on a moving chain-link belt through the grill from Gehenna. With me and the wife at home I thought a little extra money would be nice, little is the key...oh did that joke already? I haven't worked there in 10+ years. Stepped right up in the middle of the lunch rush and boom..I was in the zone. You know, the Burger Time zone.

10+ years and it was like rolling off a log. Makes you wonder why people have such a hard time in positions like that. Managers screaming "WHERE'S MY WHOPPER WITH CHEESE NO ONION!?!?!" and fry cooks spazzing out as they run to and fro trying to keep up with the 4 orders they have. I'm there just putzing about making these brand new burgers that I don't have a clue to make. Double bacon cheddar cheese tendercrisp WTF? Pardon my acronym.

Not to change the subject but it looks like my sis is Escaping L.A. in the Nick Castle of time. She is leaving CA tonight at midnight to head to Denver. Let's hope it's high enough. Why?

Only a raging tower of water with destruction and a thorough colonic cleansing of the city in mind.

RUN SIS RUN IT'S GAINING!!!

Brand spanking new anime and the credits score doesn't fail to impress

...upon me that anime credit music sucks.

Just finished watching Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.



Pretty? yes.

Explosions? yes.

Naked yet neuter robotic dolls chopping guards heads off with a single swipe? yes.

Gigantic amoeba-like blob at the end of the movie? surprisingly no.

Cool robots and neat ships. Brutal gun fight but man was the story a drag.

The genre is highly over rated. The coolest concept took a 2 minute scene to develop and complete. Then...as Lemon Jelly puts it....nothing. But the computer techie guys within the Solcus Locus ship were neat, their speak especially. Sounded like a barbaric derivative of an Imperial probe droid.

Oh yeah you get the occasional neat vehicle, but nah the writers decide to make everything retro. Who cares? We've already seen that! Use some vision! Imagine the future, make it somthing unlike what we've had!

Speaking of vision...

You could see the ending a mile away. Plus the two main characters keep hitting each other over the head with lame and out of place quotes from the Bible and Milton and a million other sources that the writers figured were esoteric enough to be interesting. yawn. I mean if the quotes actually pushed the movie towards any type of enjoyable payoff yeah sure. Bludgeon us with your heavy handed writing style. But since the movie was as bland as a Japanese cookie, all that fluff was even worse.

However, during the beginning and towards the end of the movie there is this Japanese chorus of women or girls. Simply put...amazing. Really great sound and good placement within the films' context too.

So that makes the ridiculous ending credits song even worse. It's like their trying to support the bad musicians and singers of Japan by giving them the end credit portions to make a living on. Well, hey wellfare is wellfare I guess.

Followers

It seems like everyone has to post a blog nowadays. Back in the day it was just us pioneering few. The pale and geeky who forged ahead posting raving nonsense about things no one cared about. I mean, I've been blogging since April and now these snot nosed cyber brats think they know everything.

Now for something completely different...a man with three buttocks.

When Internet2 shows up I'll be streaming HDTV to my 3 teraflop harddrive.

A man with three noses...(he's not here yet.)...two noses?

It didn't take long. After a close game of Puerto Rico on some night this past week my brother and I began making plans to soup up the game. To be specific combine elements from Pirates of the Spanish Main.

The two seem to combine quite seamlessly...but we'll see in a little while. More than likley we will accomplish nothing. Like all of my games. sob.

THE BLOUDY TENENT OF PERSECUTION FOR CAUSE OF CONSCIENCE

That esteemed Rhode Islanda. The name sake of an intimate and compact zoo nestled in the outskirts of Providence.

Roger William

You better click on that link and read...it's worth the trouble. Man what a guy.

But few know of what a great debt our nation owes this man. Our democracy and freedoms are owed to him. The Providence Platations charter in 1643 allowed for a Republican government that had no control over religion or issues of faith. The first civil society in the history of the world to do so. No other colony charter shares these now "American" values. Our entire cultural/political outlook has been completely shaped by the smallest state in the Union.

The form of government established by the Rhode-Islanders was, as to civil affairs, much like those of the other colonies, but in the important article of religion, they differed from them all. Liberty of conscience was, in the first social compact at Providence, established by law, and no one was allowed to vote among them, who opposed it. [Backus, vol. i. p. 96.] This darling principle was planted in the soil of Rhode-Island, before the red men left it, or ever the lofty forests were laid waste, and has been transmitted from father to son with the most studious care; it was interwoven in every part of the State Constitution, has extended its influence to all transactions, whether civil or sacred, and in no part of the world has it been more inviolably maintained for the space of upwards of a hundred and seventy years. It is the glory and boast of Rhode-Island, that no one within her bounds was ever legally molested on account of his religious opinions, and that none of her annals are stained with acts to regulate those important concerns, which he wholly between man and his Maker. Hence it was early said of this colony, "They are much like their neighbors, only they have one vice less, and one virtue more than they; for they never persecuted any, but have ever maintained a perfect liberty of conscience" [Edwards’ MS. History of Rhode Island, p. 10]

Twice Rhode Island was nearly annexed by both Massachusetts and Connecticut. Both times thwarted by that God blessed man Roger William. The man who single handedly stopped the alliance of the Pequots, Mohegans and Narragansett tribes to unite and slaughter every New Englander. A plot that would have been a bloody success had he not stepped into harms way for that northern Bay Colony that had sought his expulsion to the Motherland.

I couldn't be more proud of the founder of my great state.

The man needs more than a tiny zoo he needs his own national holiday!