Zixar

For those who liked John Simm as the new Master, I highly recommend watching his previous series, Life on Mars. Simm plays Sam Tyler, a cop in Manchester who gets in an accident and wakes up in 1973. He doesn't know if he's insane, in a coma, or actually thrown back in time, but it's like living on another planet. Only two seasons were filmed, of eight episodes each, but it's well worth watching. A follow-on series, Ashes to Ashes is set to debut next year on the BBC. God bless! Zix

Grats to you and your family! I guess we'll be hearing about your grand-!s in the not too distant future... God bless! Zix

Some helpful words/abbreviations for compu-speak (also called "Leetspeak" or sometimes even "13375p34k", for those who were good in math but horrible at spelling or something...) TYVM - Thank you very much. NP - No problem. WTF? - What the F---? Pwn - Misspelling of 'own', pronounced "pone", usually used in smacktalk phrases like "I totally pwned that guy with my megablaster!" DIAF - Die In A Fire. Usually used as an insult. FOAD - F--- Off And Die. LFG/LFM/LFT - Looking For Group/Looking For More/Looking For Team WTB - Want To Buy WTS - Want To Sell WTT - Want To Trade I had another list floating around here somewhere, but I don't remember where. There's obviously tons more.

The list is similar for cats. No onions, garlic, chocolate, or cow's milk, for starters.

Eh, you should watch the whole Alizee video. Apaprently, the programmers of "World of Warcraft" were so enamored of Alizee's backside that they swiped her dance for the female Night Elf dancing animation. Then again, they swiped Napoleon Dynamite's dance for the male Blood Elves, and Daler Mehndi's "Tunak Tunak Tun" dance for the male Draenei dance in the latest expansion. I wonder whose job it is to go around looking on the internet for goofy dances to program into video games. I want that job...

I think that was actually just to cover history. The Earp brothers did go to Deadwood in real life, years before the Tombstone incident. They only stayed a few months before moving on, however.

I was speaking of recycling economies at the consumer level. At the industrial level, Jim is quite correct about recycling steel, copper, lead, etc. He's also correct about recycling uranium from reactors. It's not all that difficult to do. But, in an earlier example of political hysteria quashing good science, the nuclear waste problem was hyper-exaggerated in the 70s and 80s. So we went back to CO2-producing fossil fuel electric plants instead of pursuing nuclear power. "Not in my back yard" has turned into "in everybody's atmosphere". Yes, nuclear waste products are pretty nasty. But we know exactly where they are at the end of the day--they aren't just belched into the atmosphere.

If the current age of the Earth is about five billion years, then 600,000 years of data, if we really have it, represents about a tenth of one percent of our planet's climatologic history. Try to predict exactly what will happen in your life over the next year from what happens to you in the next nine hours--one-tenth of one percent of a year. There are things that we do know and can prove. Things like that the Sun is a slightly variable star--its energy output fluctuates a bit. Its variations are mostly irregular--no one can predict if it will put out more or less energy on Saturday as it did today. Natural disasters like volcanoes and prairie/forest fires happen suddenly, and can dump far more pollution into the atmosphere in a short period of time than any man made source short of a nuclear bomb. Factories are much cleaner today than they were 100 years ago. There are more trees in America today than there were in the 1700s. In short, if the guesses are correct and the Earth really is getting permanently warmer, human pollution is only a minor factor in it, if at all.

My big problem is the sensationalization of what should really be cold, impartial science. Climatological change models are only as accurate as the available seed data, and we simply do not have accurate enough temperature information recorded over a long enough period of time to predict where we're going with any bankable accuracy. It's somewhat similar to predicting the rest of a person's life from a five-minute observation and listening to stories from his friends and relatives to fill in the rest. (The five minutes is our current high-precision temperature data, the stories are hundreds of years of "well, we sure had a cold one this winter.") The political maneuverings are utterly reprehensible. There's a lot of furor over the United States' refusal to accept the Kyoto Protocols and the like. Makes great political fodder for any party in opposition, even though no sane U.S. President would ever sign such an agreement, regardless of political party. The environmentalism lobby basically wants to charge energy-consuming nations and credit third-world nations with the proceeds. It would strangle our economy and bankrupt the US. Personally, I don't care if France is the world's largest consumer of uranium, and I don't expect them to pay us for doing so. In the same manner, I suspect the poor farmer in Ethiopia equally doesn't care if we consume the most crude oil. Al Gore screaming about Bush not signing Kyoto, painting him as some sort of environmental rapist, is just another example of the political leverage of hypocrisy and bull..... But again, that strays far afield from the continuing science of the matter. Politics suck.

I've said my piece on the whole "global warming" business often enough, but I haven't repeated this one lately, so here goes: The only things that are truly economical to recycle are aluminum and plastics. Recycling paper generates more toxic waste than harvesting new trees. The paper companies know this. They are also the biggest tree farmers on the planet, because paper is literally a cash crop for them. It doesn't matter much if the tree is "old growth" or "new growth", they all scrub CO2 from the atmosphere. Plastics truly are wonder products when it comes to recycling. You know the saying "familiarity breeds contempt"? You work in a candy store, you start to hate chocolate, that sort of thing. I did some contracting work in a plastics plant for several years, and the exact opposite happened. Instead of gaining a growing hatred of plastic as polluting and unnatural, I learned a healthy respect for that petroleum goo. The only material waste that plant generated was the trash from the lunchroom. All the leftover plastic foam from when the picnic plates were punched from the sheet was just collected, ground back into tiny bits, and fed through the foam extruders again. No toxic paper sludge, no refining dross, you just keep re-using it until it becomes part of a plate or a cup and goes out the door. If demand for foam plates goes down, you dump your recycled foam into the plastic bag assembly line and it becomes trash bags. And it's all from petroleum we can't use as gasoline. The only downside is that there are many different kinds of plastic, and you can't mix them when you recycle. Recycle glass? Eh, why bother. Glass is made from sand. We have absolutely no shortage of that. It's another thing that adds to pollution because it burns more gas to haul it off to recycle the stuff or destroy it because demand for recycled glass is so low. Aluminum is not that easy to extract from its ore, bauxite. It's far easier to melt and recast old cans, and that's why it's about the only thing you actually get cash for when you recycle it.

Found it! Everette Wallin played "Joey" in four episodes of the first season of Deadwood. Good ol' IMDB.com... I don't really remember the character, but I'll be sure to watch for him in re-runs.

Well, last night's episode certainly had some shock value for the fight between Dority and the Captain. It really is a shame that this is the last season, because they've improved so much over last season--and last season was pretty darn good, pardner.* translated from the RealWestSpeak "pretty f'n good, c'sucker." I don't recognize the actor from the picture, but I'm sure he'd show up in the IMDB entry for Deadwood.

Speaking of last night's episode, I got one of the few laughs I've gotten from the series from the exchange between Charlie Utter and Sheriff Bullock about Joanie Stubbs selling the old Chez Ami building. "You call that quick?" I just wonder if Timothy Olyphant wears boots two sizes too small just to help him stay perpetually p1ssed off...

I agree, Hope. Ian McShane has made Al Swearengen a piece of television history. That final scene of last night's episode, where we finally discover Swearengen's origin, should net him every award he's eligible for. More TV shows worth renting the seasons and catching up on: The Shield - I believe last year Michael Chiklis and Ian McShane were both up for the same awards. Tough call last year--but McShane should easily win this year. (5 seasons) nip/tuck - Beauty has its price. So does ugly. nip/tuck finds new ways to be a human trainwreck every week. (3 seasons, new season starts in September) Rescue Me - The third of the F/X Tuesday trio, and currently in the middle of its third season. It's the only one of this new wave of TV drama that actually has humor mixed in with all the pathos. (2 seasons on DVD, third underway) House - Although the first season suffered early on from extremely repetitive plots, the show has evolved away from the mystery-disease-of-the-week. Hugh Laurie shows (as does Denis Leary from Rescue Me) that comedians can actually do drama. (For a real shock, watch several episodes of House, then watch Hugh in the "Private Plane" episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. :) ) (2 seasons) Battlestar Galactica - Forget the cheesy 1979 version with its 7 repeated special effects shots, Ron Moore has managed to re-tell the story with a much more adult theme, digging into morality issues not usually explored in space opera. Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell (from Dances With Wolves) star. (1.5 seasons out on DVD, the second half of Season 2 coming shortly to DVD.)

For those of you who like Hugh Laurie on "House", you might get a kick out of where he got his start. He starred in the last two Blackadder series on the BBC, Blackadder the Third and Blackadder Goes Forth along with Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean). Both are now available on DVD, and on August 22nd, two seasons of his sketch comedy show, A Bit Of Fry & Laurie, will become available on DVD in the States. Hugh and comedy partner Stephen Fry did a great job on the show, and only low circulation in the US kept it from being as well-known as Fawlty Towers or Monty Python's Flying Circus. Soupy twist, Zix

Jonny: Yes, that was the "V" word to which I referred. It's a Latin slang term. The Latin word used anatomically was cunnus, which, obviously, is where the Old English vulgarity we use today came from. And while we're being ridiculously technical, neither the "f'n", "C---s---ing" or "c--t" words are profanity. They're obscenity. Profane terms deal with impiety or blasphemy, like "G-dd---it". But, hey, back to Deadwood...it's about time they showed Hearst's true colors, eh? And it looks like Doc Cochran has himself a case of TB...

The language has been toned down slightly from the pilot, where I think there were over a hundred utterances of the "f-word" in a one-hour show. I think the closest comparison to Deadwood would be Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven. In that film, absolutely none of the characters was particularly honorable or "good". The sheriff was crooked, the hero was a murderer, etc. The only character I can think of that hasn't been tarred as hopelessly flawed is Sol Starr, but he usually winds up only a spectator to Bullock's peccadilloes anyway. Granted, the show can be VERY painful to watch at times (especially during the first half of the second season) but it is quite compelling nonetheless. Usually television drama is of the situational variety--"normal" people getting screwed over by unforeseen circumstances. Deadwood takes a different approach. Here, the circumstances are "normal" (building businesses, running for office, family matters) but the characters are dysfunctional addicts to their own particular drugs. Swearengen lusts for power, Bullock lusts for control (and Mrs. Garrett), Farnum lusts for money, Jane lusts for alcohol, and so on. How they cope with life given the competition from the others in their microcosm drives the entire series. (On a slightly-related historical note, the female slur "c" word that people find so objectionable is actually derived from the Latin medical term for the female genitalia. It's the "v" word that's really the Latin derogatory slang for it. It meant "the sheath(scabbard) for a sword". Go figure.)

While the series has very crude language, the creators insist that the real Deadwood probably had worse. Apparently the legends of the Old West were heavily sanitized for public consumption. The series has dealt with some ugly issues, but with the top-notch acting by the ensemble, Deadwood has become one of the best series HBO ever produced. (Personally, I rank it third behind The Sopranos and From The Earth To The Moon, both of which others I highly recommend.) Ian McShane has really given a masterful performance as Swearingen. He could have made him such a one-dimensional, cookie-cutter bad guy, but McShane has turned him into an amoral, Machiavellian force. However, even malevolent dictators have their problems... It's worth watching from the beginning. Both previous seasons are available for rent from Blockbuster and NetFlix.

Let's see...I've forgotten some of the actors/characters' names, but here's enough to get you started. Al Swearingen (Ian McShane) - Owner of the Gem saloon, Swearingen was the cunning but brutal power lord of Deadwood at the beginning of the series. Competition soon moved in, however, from the likes of Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe), owner of the rival Bella Union saloon/brothel, and newcomer George Hearst (Gerald McRaney). Sheriff Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) - Ex-lawman who moved to Deadwood to get away from law enforcement. (Didn't last long.) At odds with Swearingen from day one, but now forced into an uneasy alliance with him against the incursions of mining millionaire George Hearst. Married his brother's wife after his brother died, but the relationship is cool and formal at best. Partner in a hardware concern with Sol Starr. Had (having?) an affair with the widow Alma Garrett, who is now pregnant with his child. Somber, taciturn, and explosively violent at times. Alma Garrett - She and her husband moved to Deadwood in the first episode and bought a gold claim from Swearingen, who had his men salt the property with gold to drive up the purchase price, intending to buy it back from Garrett at a reduced price when the claim turned out to be worthless. Instead, an untapped gold vein is found on the property, prompting Swearingen to arrange a fatal accident for Garrett. Under advice from Bullock, Alma refuses to sell the claim back and remains in Deadwood, now the richest woman in the town. Bullock's advice turns into an affair. Assumed guardianship of a small girl found near the site of a massacre in episode 1. E. B. Farnum (William Sanderson) - the weaselly owner of the original hotel in town, and puppet mayor under Swearingen. Always out for a buck. Sol Starr - Bullock's partner in the hardware store, now officer of the town bank, usually derided because he's Jewish, shacked up with Trixie, Swearingen's (ex?-) prostitue madam. Calamity Jane - The drunken scout of legend, no real fan of Swearingen, friend to Wild Bill Hickok (killed in season 1). Charlie Utter - Deputy sheriff under Bullock, and closest thing to a friend Jane now has. Bullock, Utter, and Jane are the closest thing to "law" Deadwood might have, but one would be hard pressed to see it without a microscope. The Doctor (Brad Dourif) - Probably the most sane person in Deadwood, but the competition isn't that great.

LG: Look again. Garth and Oakspear did so, at least. 2 != 0. As for flexible interpretations of the First Amendment, I was being facetious to make a point. Sorry if it was lost on you. The establishment clause cannot justify establishing atheism as the state religion any more than Catholicism. Oakspear: I was trying to be precise in my wording. I'm sorry if you took offense at my use of "degenerate", but the concept is quite applicable to this debate. (well, if you can call this a debate, that is.) A better example of the definition of a degenerate case is the Pythagorean Theorem, namely: For any planar right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse, c, is equal to the sum of the squares of the two adjacent sides, a and b. Or c^2=a^2 + b^2. However, if the triangle does not contain a right angle, (like an isosceles or equilateral triangle), the formula fails to produce the correct answer. The Pythagorean Theorem is a degenerate case of a broader law that encompasses all triangles, not just right triangles. (All planar triangles, that is. Spherical trigonometry requires an even broader law, but I won't go into it here.) The broader law is called the Law of Cosines, and can be stated thusly: For any triangle with sides a, b, and c, the square of the length of side c is equal to the sum of the squares of sides a and b, minus 2 times the product of a, b, and the cosine of the angle, theta, between a and b. Or c^2 = a^2 +b ^2 - 2ab*cos(theta). In the case of a right triangle, the angle between a and b is always a 90-degree right angle, and the cosine of a 90-degree angle is zero. That makes the final term of the Law of Cosines, 2ab*cos(theta), equal to 2ab*0, or zero. Which leaves us with the degenerate form, c^2=a^2+b^2, the Pythagorean Theorem, QED. Now, it should be obvious that "a belief system containing n or more Higher Powers" will therefore be descriptive of any religion, even if n is zero. (In the strictest terms, n=0 is not even sufficient for a religion to be a degenerate case, but that's discussion for metaphysics, I suppose.) Anyone who stayed awake during grade-school math should know that zero is a number, the empty set is still a set, and defining a condition by its absence is perfectly logical (cf. absolute zero, etc.). Atheism is a religion.

Not zealous? (looks at the number of GSC atheists who immediately jumped into the thread posting their dogma) ROFLMAO! But, okay, let's humor the godless for a second. Suppose we do declare atheism as "not a religion". It would therefore lose any protection it might have had under the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause, 'cuz, hey, it ain't no religion! It's ok to legislate and discriminate around atheism, 'cuz, hey, only religions are constitutionally protected! There are no legal grounds to sue any more over the Pledge of Allegiance or "In God We Trust", 'cuz you cain't insult no religion that ain't a religion! Jesus, guys, grow up. Either atheism is a set of religious beliefs (albeit a degenerate one--and look up the mathematical definition of 'degenerate' before you get your panties in a wad) and you're just as free to think that way as anyone else, or it isn't, and therefore completely irrelevant to any matters involving religion. Too funny.

Pfft. Atheism is as much "not a religion" as zero is "not a number".

A partial song list for Guitar Hero 2 has been released, and will include songs from Rush, Van Halen, and KISS among its 55-song playlist. I picked up a second guitar controller over the weekend, and multiplayer mode is really cool. You both play at the same time, sometimes taking turns, sometimes playing the same notes, and a meter swings back and forth depending on who's doing better.

You buy the World of Warcraft client at your local gamestore. It comes with your first month of play included, but after that you either pay by credit card or buy pre-paid timecards. It's currently $14.95/month, with discounts for 3-month/6-month/12-month advance purchases. Sounds like a lot, but it's cheaper than a single movie for two, and you can play it 24 hrs a day for that month. Cheap entertainment, really. WoW, as it's called, is the most popular online Role-playing game out there, with reportedly over 5.5 million users worldwide. I'll warn you, though, it can be extremely addictive. There are multiple servers, but there isn't any communication between them. So, if you're inclined to play and want to play with me, select the "Khaz Modan" server to create a character on. I mostly play Alliance characters on Khaz Modan, although I have a couple of Horde characters for variety. (You can create characters on all the servers, but you can only share things between your characters on the same server. You can have up to 10 characters on any 1 server.)

If dealing out two-fisted mayhem with death rays just doesn't really float your boat, there may be a solution to your videogame fix after all. I just recently got "Guitar Hero" for the Sony Playstation 2, and let me tell you, this is about the most fun you can have without a body count. The game comes with a special controller shaped like a scaled-down Gibson SG electric guitar, with five colored fret buttons, a strum bar, and a working whammy bar. Game play is similar to games like Dance Dance Revolution, where commands (notes, in this case) come scrolling down the screen for you to play. You simply hold down the colored fret button (or buttons, in the higher difficulty levels) corresponding to the note and click down on the strum bar as they reach the bottom. When you play correctly, the guitarist on stage moves and plays along with you. When you hit a clinker, the guitar track stops or squeals depending on if you missed a note or added one you shouldn't. The whammy bar alters the pitch just like on a real guitar. There are over thirty real songs to play along with, spread out over the 70s, 80s, 90s through today. (They're all covers, of course, due to licensing arrangments, but at least they got fairly decent cover artists to do them.) You start with "I Love Rock N Roll" by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, then progress to songs like "Smoke On The Water", "I Wanna Be Sedated", "More Than A Feeling", "Sharp Dressed Man", "Take Me Out", "Iron Man", "You Got Another Thing Coming", "Ziggy Stardust", and so on. The Easy difficulty level only uses the first 3 frets and is fairly simple, but just try "Bark At The Moon" on Expert mode sometime...yikes! The price may seem a bit steep for a game ($69.95) but it's one of those deceptively entertaining games that keeps its value for a long time. I've paid a lot more for things I've enjoyed a lot less. So, throw away your air guitars and pick up Guitar Hero for your PS2. It's non-violent fun for everyone, and a great party game. (Guitar Hero 2 will be released in November with new songs and new play modes like Rhythm Guitar and Bass instead of just Lead like GH1. Woot!)