Moisture vaporators

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away there was a budding young Jedi living on a desert planet with his aunt and uncle. They were moisture farmers. They put moisture vaporators out in the desert every quarter mile or so. The moisture vaporators collected what little water there was out of the air and processed it for human consumption. The Skywalker family would then sell the water in town.


No, really, that's what the Skywalkers did for a living.

Now you can get a moisture vaporator of your very own.

I always thought the idea was a neat one. I've wondered how to make one. You can see how window air conditioners tend to drool all over the place. So clearly condensation is one method. Then filter the water and run it under an ultraviolet light to kill any bacteria. I'd take note of different developments that made it more efficient. There's special fabrics that can collect and shed water without condensation.

Last summer I started looking more seriously. See, I'm trying to stop using the air conditioner. I've been successful for two summers and am working on a third. But the house gets uncomfortable. Not hot. Not really. In the low 80's. But the humidity kills ya. I could run a dehumidifier but I'm told that it uses just barely less power than the AC. I may as well be running the AC. I have to wonder what the power consumption of a moisture vaporator is.

Here's what I'm finding.

AirWater Corp has several models. Alas, they all seem to be focused on making water for large groups. They run from 5,000 liters for irrigation and 1,000 for villages down to 100 litres that makes water and ice and 120 liters for ... I guess offices. These work on the scale of the Star Wars models but I can't see using them in a family sized house.

Air 2 Water has residential models but my experiences trying to buy one from them last summer tells me that they're not terribly interested in dealing with us small fries. They were dismissive and rude.
The Dolphin/dragonfly T16 is about water cooler sized. It produces up to a liter per hour and stores up to 14 liters. It consumes 600-1000 watts.
The Dolphin 2/Dragonfly M18 is a countertop model. It produces half a liter per hour and consumes 523-635 watts. Maximum storage is 7 liters. If this isn't enough water it can also serve as a filter for your tap.
They also have a filter for the kitchen sink, but that's getting away from the point of my research.

Librex also has a water cooler and a countertop model. They have the Waterex and Crystello but I can't get much more info than that.

Xziex is similarly lacking in details. However, judging from the photos on their website, their Xziex Elite appears to be nearly identical to the previously mentioned Dolphin 2/Dragonfly M18.

My favorite so far is Planet's Purest Water's residential model, the Rain Cloud C-21. Their PDF gives hard data about how much water you can expect at different temperatures and humidities. It produces 8-48 liters per day depending on local conditions. It has a 25 liter main tank. It has a hot water tank that can be switched off if, like me, you don't need it and are trying to conserve power. The water making and chilling compressor uses 371W. It costs $1,700. The staff responds to e-mails quickly and courteously.

Movie Review: Wall-E

"Wall-E" is a Pixar movie. I don't think anything else needs to be said.

You know how "The Incredibles" was great animated cartoon but not terribly funny? It was more like a super hero movie with a humorous element. "Wall-E" is a science fiction movie with a humorous element.

Wall-E is a waste elimination robot. Quite possibly the last one on Earth. Certainly the last in his neighborhood. 700 years ago the garbage problem became so severe that the humans jumped in space ships and left. They were supposed to be colonizing a new world. Instead they found a place in a distant nebula and stayed there. The WALL-E model robots stayed behind to clean up. Now there is only one. As parts break he just pulls replacements off of other dead Wall-Es.

One day a ship lands and released a probe droid. Wall-E, who has been watching the same old romantic movie nearly every day for who knows how long, falls in love and follows her. When she finds what she came looking for she shuts down and sends a signal for her to be retrieved. Wall-E grabs on to the ship that comes for her and returns to the human ship with her.

I tell you that much because you can see most of that from the trailers.

There is very little dialog in this movie. Only 7 human actors were used for voices. One of the central characters is performed by MacInTalk software. I think it was the Ralph setting.

There are several messages in this movie. A fairly obvious one about protecting the environment. Another about living too much inside our own computers. A third about giving too much control over to the robots. A fourth about working to solve our problems instead of running away.

I'd suggest your kids be 7 or 8 years old before you take them to see this. The theater was packed with 5 year olds that were getting scared.

I will be getting this on DVD.

Movie Review: Wanted

I caught a screening of "Wanted" last night. This movie had totally failed to catch my attention before. I'd seen a trailer or two but they focused on Angelina Jolie and guns. The curving bullet trick was neat but it just came off kinda lame. But I won tickets so I went.

It's hard to talk about this movie without giving something away. So instead I'm going to tell you a different story. In Greek mythology there's three women: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. They're The Fates (a.k.a. Apportioners; a.k.a. Moirae). Clotho, a young woman, spins the thread of our lives. Lachesis, the middle aged one, measures the threads. Atropos, an elderly woman, cuts the threads. They have parallels in Roman and Norse mythology but the Greek version is best known.

Keep the idea of threads as human lives in mind when you watch this movie.
Or perhaps think of threads as a story. Then watch the threads on screen as the movie progresses.

Now back to the movie:
1000 years ago a group of weavers formed an order of assassins called The Fraternity.
Our hero is a complete goomba with a crap job, a cheating girlfriend, and nothing to live for.
Our hero is recruited by The Fraternity to take out a rogue member.
His father, who left when our hero was a week old, was in The Fraternity.
But maybe I've said too much.

It's equal parts "The Matrix", "Mr and Mrs Smith", and "The Bourne Identity". They're not shy with the blood. Lots of great action sequences.

I'm torn about whether to get it on DVD or not. It's a great movie and I'm really glad I saw it. I'm just not sure that it's something I want to see over and over again.

Movie Review: Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs.

The cartoon "Futurama" was canceled because it was often preempted by sporting events so only people on the west coast got to see it. That played hell with the ratings and the rest of us really didn't know when to expect it. It got canceled. But the reruns have great ratings. They want new episodes. So, during 2008 Fox is releasing 5 new "Futurama" movies. "The Beast With a Billion Backs" is the second of the five movies.

The first movie was pretty good. Maybe they were coming back after a long time off and were full of fresh ideas. Maybe they worked extra hard on the first so we'd be more likely to pick up later ones. Maybe it was just the thrill of getting to see a new one after all these years.

This one wasn't as good. It's not bad. Don't get me wrong. It's just not on the same level as the first movie. This was more like a regular "Futurama" episode.

When we last left our heroes, at the end of the last movie, a huge rift had formed in space above Earth. A month later not much has changed. A few people are still standing there screaming but most have gotten back to their lives. Fry is dating someone new. That never works out well. After that inevitably blows up Fry goes through the rift where he meets a giant tentacle planet which wants to enslave every living being in our universe.

Thanks a lot, Fry.

Some people get married. Some people die. Stuff happens.

There's an extra half hour video done in 3D that looks like it might have been a video game that they decided not to release or something.

Look, I either had you at "Futurama" or I didn't. This is just a warning that it doesn't live up to the first movie. But if you liked the show you'll like this.

Annapolis

Having no car means I haven't really gotten too far outside DC's Metro range since I've been here. So I jumped at the chance to go see Annapolis last weekend with the No Kidding¹ group.

Annapolis is the capitol city of Maryland. It's also one of the older cities in the country. They work very hard to maintain that appearance. I didn't see much of the residential area. We spent all our time down in the historical, tourist district. The sidewalks are mostly uneven brick which must just play hell with the skateboarders. The shops are small and zoned to keep out most big chain stores. There were some Starbucks, a Subway, and some chain ice cream place but they were overwhelmed by the non-chain ice cream, restauraunts, pubs, clothing stores, craft shops, etc.

We toured a restored house and garden that once belonged to William Paca. Paca was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/tour_paca.html

We took a short, 40 minute, boat tour up and down the bay to check out the neighborhood. There are lots of other, much longer, boat tours.
http://www.watermarkcruises.com/

A day trip out there may be an option for people who are on their 5th or 6th visit to DC and have exhausted even the Postal Museum as places to visit.

¹No Kidding is a social group for people who don't have/want children.

Movie Review: Get Smart

Don't listen to the movie critics.

I know, that's a pretty obvious statement. They love the stuff that nobody else will watch and hate the stuff that's really pretty good. On a rare occasion they will like something good. I was blown away by how many liked "Batman Begins". That just tells you how truly awesome that movie was.

The critics I heard from really didn't like "Get Smart". Not sure why. A year or three back I downloaded a bunch of old "Get Smart" episodes. What? I didn't have cable growing up so I didn't get to watch all the Nick-at-Nite stuff. So, the show was very Mel Brooksian. Lots of gags that got repeated from show to show. Some awful puns. A funny show when viewed week by week. Kinda lame all viewed together. Probably wouldn't survive a season today.

I thought the movie was funnier. Not a Leslie Nielsen type of humor like the show. Somewhere between James Bond and "The Spy Who Knew Too Little". Ok, that probably doesn't help. It's inspired by the old show, and it pays homage to the old show, but it's a more intelligent humor while still keeping much of the old slapstick. It's a comedy but it's still a quality action/spy movie movie in it's own right.

Steve Carell does a good Don Adams but still manages to make the Maxwell Smart character his own.

I recommend this movie and I will be getting on DVD. I will also be going to see the sequel that they obviously have planned.

Stratego

I'm assuming you've played "Stratego" as I write this.

I finally got a copy of the board game "Stratego". Not for myself, even though it's staying at my house. I'd been looking for one in toy stores for a year or so. I couldn't find it. Even the people that work in the toy stores were blown away that they didn't have one. It's one of those basic games that everyone has. It's like "Monopoly", "Battleship", "Life", etc. So finally I just bought a copy online.

Why?
Because I live in Washington, DC.
Maybe I should explain that. I grew up several miles from everything. I was surrounded on three sides by cows. I killed time by wandering around in the wild, poking at a primitive computer, reading, and playing some board games.
Now I live in Washington, DC. There are no ditches to fish for tadpoles in. No crawdads, no (nearby) woods to explore, the locals can't read, they can't afford a computer even if they could write well enough to do a Google search. There is a playground or two but not anywhere close to me. Popular activities among DC teens involve joining gangs and playing video games.
Since I'm about the only adult who spends time outdoors I wind up with the kids and have to find ways to entertain them. I loan them video games, we watch Dr. Who, and we play games. I have UNO to play with the really young ones. I bought "Battleship" because I knew the schools weren't going to cover graphing. I got "Stratego" because It's a great game.

I wasn't sure how well the twins (just finished 10th grade) would do with "Stratego". After 3 summers they're still struggling with "Battleship". They seemed a little befuddled as I explained the rules. They asked questions like "how many pieces do we start with?" I'll just name them "red" and "blue" since they always use the same colors and I can't tell them apart any other way. Red started putting out his pieces with a plan. He understood enough to be able to work on fortifying his defenses and keeping his flag hidden way in the back. Blue seemed to just start in the back left corner and start putting out pieces almost at random and placing them from left to right in four rows. No real plan. He placed all of his bombs along the back row. The flag was in the front row hidden behind a pond.

The battle was started. A few pieces were exchanged. Red sent out his 10 and attacked the opposing spy. The spy is useless for everything except taking out 10s. There's only one of each. He then marched his spy out so both spies went up in a blaze of mutual destruction. So now he had no defense against the opposing 10. As the game progressed Red chewed his way through the middle of Blue's forces and started attacking the back row where he knew Red must have placed his flag. Suddenly Red's strategy seemed brilliant. Blue sends wave after wave rushing right past the flag to poke at the back row and blow themselves up. Red has been watching what Blue moves and what Blue moves around. He's sending in 3s to take out what can only be Blue's bombs. Red has lost everything numbered higher than a 5. Blue is gently poking around Red's army with an 8, a 9, and a 10.

Since about halfway through the game they'd agreed that the winner took me on. Near the end I'm laughing and telling Red that he's gonna kick himself when the game is over. So once Blue finally reaches Red's completely undefended flag I reach out and turn Blue's flag around. Red flips. "REMATCH! You and me! We're going again! Rematch!" Blue and I laugh our asses off. Red demands a rematch but their dad is calling them home.

They got their rematch the next day. I could tell from their new layouts that some thought had gone into the game over the night. Still, I reached behind their boards and moved a few pieces around. I didn't explain why until after the game. It's amazing how two guys who still think that they should fill every single hole in "Battleship" are able to plan so well in "Stratego".

Bigots

I was listening to NPR this morning (OK, Wednesday morning) and listened to a report about the Christians in California responding to the recently legalized gay marriage. They think they'll get the state constitution changed so that courts can't say the ban is illegal. I hope their wrong.

So on the way to work I found myself singing a little ditty.

If you're a bigot and you know it say "Amen".
If you're a bigot and you know it say "Amen".
If you're a bigot and you know it
You know exactly how to show it
If you're a bigot and you know it say "Amen".

Yeah, there's a few religious people who aren't against two people of the same gender getting married. But they're few and far between.

Personally, I think the subject of marriage, gay or not, is a religious one. I'd take the government out of the equation completely. Just establish a legal contract between two people for all the same benefits of a marriage but call it something else. And if someone wants to use the word "marriage" then they can find a church willing to do it. Make it a fight between faiths and churches. As public opinion shifts one way or another churches can succeed or fail depending on how open minded or bigoted the local population is.

Movie Review: Animation Show 4

Mike Judge, creator of "Beavis and Butthead", "King of the Hill", and "Idiocracy", has been putting together annual animation festivals. It's big enough this year that it's being shown at the independent movie theatre down on E street.

There are submissions from all over the world. Few use words so language isn't an issue most of the time. Quality, however, is. There weren't many cartoons that made me laugh. There were several amusing ones. And then there were those that weren't even that.

I'd say the ones worth watching made up just more than half of the show.

I could have skipped it.

Book Review: World War Z

I forget what author recommended this book. I just know that I'd seen this book on the shelves and gave it a pass. But an author that I respect put it on his list of favorite reads. And I see why now.

"World War Z" by Max Brooks is a collection of people telling their own stories from the Zombie War. Not short stories. More like a documentary. And put the zombie bit out of your mind. Sure, the enemy was the living dead but the book reads like a war story.

The author claims that he was on Congress' committee to write the after action report on the war. Sort of like the 9-11 Commission but for the Zombie War. But half of his work was cut from the final report for being too personal. They wanted facts, figures, numbers, and quantifiable data. But that's not what war is about. War is about the people. In this case it's about the survivors.

The author has traveled the world for these interviews. He interviewed a doctor in China who was one of the first to encounter the infection. He interviewed surgeons in South America who accidentally implanted an infected organ in a patient. He interviews priests in Russia who helped resurrect the faith and establish a new Holy Russian Empire. He interviews people in India who tell about people trying to board ships that were being scrapped. He interviews Germans who talk about how they came up with their strategy for dealing with zombies. A Palestinian talks about Israel's early acceptance and response to the crisis. We read about the early military disasters in fighting back the waves of undead and later we read about the American push to clear out every last one when the people are safe(ish) in their camps.

Really, it's a fabulous book. You should at least pick up a copy in the bookstore and read a tale or two. If they don't sell you on the book then it's just not your kind of book.

This one goes in my top 25 books selection.

Movie Review: The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan, best known as the writer of "The Sixth Sense", has made yet another weak movie. I knew it was weak when I went but it still seemed intriguing. The most interesting part and the climax all take place in the first twenty minutes.

You may have learned in high school science that plants produce chemicals to attract or repel insect. A traumatized plant can produce chemicals that communicate this to other plants. Well, what if plants found a chemical that would interfere with normal brain functions in humans? That's what happens in this movie. Plants in the American northeast start producing this chemical. First you start to talk funny, then you get disoriented and stop walking, then you kill yourself.

The trailers sort of go over this. They never explain what's causing it. They tell the steps and that Marky Mark is fleeing something. We assume it's something cool. Instead we get a group of people fleeing from waving grasses. Ok, I did that as a kid. We'd look across the pasture and see the wind knocking over the grass and we'd run. But that's not the basis for a whole movie.

It's not worth buying, but the first 15-20 minutes is good enough that it's worth putting on your NetFlix cue. The scene where people are walking off the top of a construction site is pretty impressive.

Movie Review: The Incredible Hulk

First some definitions.

Retcon: When you change the back story to allow something you're doing now to work better.
A good example of this was in Spiderman 3 when they tried to implicate Sandman in the death of Uncle Ben back in the first movie.

Reboot: When you've screwed the story up so badly the only thing left is to go back and start again.
The Batman movies are good example of this. Michael Keaton and Tim Burton did a good job. Once they left it all went to hell. So they started over from the beginning again with Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan.
Superman did this when they claimed that 3 and 4 didn't exist when making 5.

"The Hulk" came out in 2003 with Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly. While the fight scenes between The Hulk and The Army were pretty awesome there wasn't much else about the movie to like. The story was all screwed up, villains were altered horribly, and they tried to make it a comic book movie instead of a superhero movie, if you catch my meaning. It was a disaster.

"The Incredible Hulk" opened Friday. It is NOT a sequel to the 2003 version. This is a reboot. I know, usually they wait a decade or so before rebooting.
The cast was completely changed. The origin was changed again. The fight scenes aren't up to the 2003 movie's standards but everything else was much improved.

Instead of telling the origin story right up front, as they usually do in a superhero movie, they reveal it in flashes in the opening credits and then again slowly as the movie progresses. I don't think I'm giving away any great spoilers when I say that instead of a proper gamma bomb test, or even the gamma based medical research from the 2003 movie, this time Banner was working on a revived Super Soldier program and experimented on himself. After injuring Betty he fled to South America like he did at the end of the 2003 movie. So this movie almost seems to pick up where "The Hulk" ended.

Banner keeps chatting with a Mr. Blue who knows him as Mr Green and is helping him work on a cure for The Hulk. Considering all the crossovers, spinoffs, and buildups that Marvel is doing in their movies these days I half expected Mr. Blue to be Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. But considering how wrong everything goes they couldn't cast Reed in that role.

This movie seems to be based fairly heavily on the TV show from the late 70's. There's lots of running from the Army and looking for a cure. But there's also a big comic book villain and the promise of another for the next movie.

Things to look for.
Stan Lee is the guy who drinks an infected bottle.
Lou Ferrigno is a security guard just like in the 2003 movie. He's also the voice of The Hulk.
As Bruce Banner is flipping channels we see an old show starring Bill Bixby.
Bruce gets a package addressed to David Banner. They used the name David in the TV show because the producers thought the name Bruce was too gay.
In the opening credits you'll see the name Nick Fury on a document.
The full name of SHIELD appears a time or two.
The name "Stark Industries" appears repeatedly.
And you can hear the song "The Lonely Man" played as Banner walks in the rain.

I can excuse you not knowing the song "The Lonely Man". Go hear it at http://www.televisiontunes.com/Incredible_Hulk_-_The_Lonely_Man_(The).html

The movie ends with Banner fleeing into Canada. I doubt they'll do anything with this, but that's where Wolverine ended up going, too. But it's a big country, right.


This is the second of a series of movies in which Marvel is building up to a much bigger movie. The first was "Iron Man". If you sat through the credits of "Iron Man" you saw Samuel L Jackson appear briefly as "Nick Fury". A lot of people sat through the credits of "The Incredible Hulk" hoping for something else and were disappointed. However, Tony "Iron Man" Stark approaches General Ross at the end of this movie and mentions that he and some others are starting something.

I'm told there are 70 minutes of footage that was cut. This had the makings of a "Lord of the Rings" length picture. I'm also told that footage will be on the DVD. Among other things there's a scene where Bruce Banner has a nice chat with Captain America. Steve "Captain America" Rodgers was the result of the original Super Soldier program back in WWII.

So I will be getting this on DVD.

Movie review: Prince Caspian

I wasn't planning to see this movie. I wasn't impressed with the first one and just wasn't feeling the need to see the sequel. But I was in Florida, I'd checked out of my hotel. I needed to kill time before catching a train that evening. So I hit the mall. There was a showing of "Prince Caspian" about to start so I went in.

In the first story our heroes find a magical Biblical allegory in the back of a wardrobe. There they become royalty and live out their lives before coming back to find only a few hours have passed.

Now a year has passed since they returned. Someone in Narnia blows a horn and our heroes are whisked off of a train platform and sent back to allegory land just several centuries after they left. We get a history lesson that explains how once they left the neighboring kingdom of humans swarmed in and killed all the magical creatures.

Now Regent has tried to kill Prince Caspian the Tenth so the Regent can take over for good. Caspian escapes and almost immediately stumbles upon the surviving magical creatures who have been hiding for centuries and thought extinct. He blew the magical horn that summoned our heroes.

Together they develop a plan to invade the castle and reclaim the kingdom for Caspian so he can return Narnia to the magical creatures. Of course, there's a voice of dissent. The little girl thinks that they should wait around for a lion to come save them all. If they all just have faith the lion will save them all.

Here, this cartoon tells it better. (source: http://www.shortpacked.com/)


I did like this movie better than the original. And once you get past the idiotic message that Jesus will stop an army of thousands if you just believe hard enough it's not bad.

I will not be getting it on DVD.

Hen and chicks

I've always thought that the succulent plant called hen and chicks were kinda cool. I got a couple from Grandma's yard a few years back and have been letting them take over a window planter. I didn't know that they flowered. Maybe it's something they only do when they get too crowded.

Book review: Murder on the Orient Express

I've never read any Agatha Christie before. As much as people rave about her I was put off by the PBS renditions of her stuff. But I've got an outline for a sci-fi murder mystery forming in my head so I thought I should familiarize myself more with the English Manor House Murder genre. "Orient Express" counts in that genre because the whole thing takes place in an isolated setting where nobody can enter or leave. It had been sitting in my to-be-read pile for a few months. What better time to crack it open than when riding a train?

This is a Hercule Poirot mystery. He's returning from a case in Syria and manages to squeeze into the last cabin in a sleeper car on the Orient Express train. Naturally, somebody is murdered. The train gets stuck in the snow leaving Poirot to solve it instead of waiting for the proper authorities at the next station.

The book is an easy read that flows well. I'd have no trouble handing a copy to an 8th grader. Or at least where I think an 8th graders reading level should be. There's a reason Agatha Christie's books have survived so long and appeal to a wide cross section of society. They're good books and easy to read. This isn't something by Dickens that only appeals to people who need to feed a superiority complex.

p.s. I've also picked up a copy of the movie "Clue" for my research.

Book Review: Children of Tomorrow

I picked up this book primarily because of the author. A.E Van Vogt isn't someone you think of when you think of science fiction authors. You think Asimov, Clarke, Niven, Pohl, Bear, and the like. But when you ask those guys who they like to read among the list is always A.E. Van Vogt. So when I was at the Friends of the Arlington Library Book Fair I saw this book and picked it up.

New concepts in science fiction are rare. Clarke has the Space Elevator and communications satellite. Asimov defined robots. Niven gave us the Ringworld. I read one guy who predicted the dancing colors in the music player on your computer years before there were even personal computer. He just gave it an MTV type setup. "Children of Tomorrow" gives an interesting twist to an old favorite.

There's a zillion old short stories from the 50's that talk about men going off in rocket and being gone for years or even decades while the wife and kids sit at home and wait. I guess those must be left overs from WWII where men went of to war for years and the family waited like good little housewives.

This story takes place in the city/military base of Spaceport in what I presume to be Florida. It's about the size of Wichita, KS (pop. 300,000) and consists largely of military personnel going to space, the support and command staff, and their families. The book takes the somewhat sexist view that the women couldn't raise their children alone. Not to mention that only men seem to go to space. I mean if the book were copyright 1950 I'd understand, but it's 1970. As a sci-fi writer I expected him to be more progressive.

Ok, off the subject. Anyway, some fleet of ships have just returned after 10 years exploration. They found something. They met aliens and the aliens attacked. There was a battle and the humans ran for Earth, making sure to duck, bob, and weave all the way back so they wouldn't be followed. It didn't work. But that's not the unique part.

Since the men on this ship were gone for 10 years their kids started running wild without the strong guiding hand of a man. Yeah, just take it as part of the made up part of the story and go with it. K? The kids have joined what they call "Outfits". At first blush they seem like gangs. They group together for protection and raise each other. But upon further reading they're more like Scouts. There are lots of small Outfits of a dozen or so boys and girls. Almost everybody between about 12 and 18 are members of one. Parents can call upon them to help make their kids too young for an Outfit to behave. They have extensive rules about what they can and cannot do and punishments to fit. Until you're 18 and leave the Outfits there's no lip kissing and special rules about who can kiss what cheek. The teens are assigned several younger kids to work with. They have jobs and responsibilities and authority. The outfits are officially sponsored so when punishments need to be inflicted on bad parents they have the full backing of the military authority.
Punishments for kids often involve short term suspensions from their Outfits. More severe punishments involve expulsion and even juvie camps for the worst offenders. For adults they can bring in MPs to take down the violent cases. For merely troublesome parents they can take control of what food the family is allowed to buy.

Van Vogt is a clear and easy read. The story was interesting and engaging. He didn't really deal with the tech so he didn't screw it up or use much in the way of impossible tech (i.e. transporters, warp drive). It just deals with space travel as a fact of life even if it is still restricted to military and research personnel. It's just the Navy in space.

I do recommend this book and this author. Once I whittle down my pile of unread books I'll start looking to expand the A.E Van Vogt wing of my library.

vacation slides

The view from Kennedy Space Center

Launch zoom. You can just make out the booster rockets.

The resulting smoke trail. You can see the shadow from the smoke.

The rocket garden. A museum of old rockets.

One of two Kennedy Space Center gators. Most of the island is a wildlife refuge with hundreds of gators. One of the museums talks about the history of the island and what lives on it now. KSR has a pond with two gators and several large turtles.

The return trip

Having destroyed my spine on the way to Orlando by trying to sleep in a train seat I decided to go ahead with the upgrade for my return trip. My trip was cut short by having everything go according to plan so all that money I intended to blow on hotel, car, and food wasn't getting spent. So I decided to enjoy the trip back.

I had considered flying back, but the train trip was factored in as part of the vacation. This is the first trip I can call a vacation since I tried to see a shuttle launch in 2002. Who knows when the next one will be. No, seriously, I want to see hands. Who knows when the next one will be?

Coach isn't like you see in TV and movies. There's not a lot of little compartments with people facing each other. It's set up more like an airplane. Lots of rows with everyone facing forward. The seats are just as uncomfortable but about the size of first class seats on airplanes.

Sleeper cars are more like what you picture. Not as deep. You get two people facing each other in good sized seats that are a bit more comfortable. But maybe that's just because I'm sitting with my legs resting on the seat across from me. Reclining is not an option. But there's a bed. The bed is on a track and lowers from the ceiling. There's several lights, and air vents. And best of all an electrical outlet. No, strike that, the bed is definitely best of all.
It took me a bit to find the door. It, like most doors here, slides into the wall. There's bottled water waiting for me. A newspaper in the morning. Food is included in the cost of the ticket. For me that means 3 meals. There's a fold out sink and a covered toilet. Obviously you want to share a cabin with someone you know well. There's a burser of sorts. I'll probably have to tip him. He does look a bit like wossname from Love Boat.

As soon as I got on I was told that my dinner reservations were already made and could progress straight to the dining car. I got a table with a woman and her daughter who are going to DC. When we get there I'm going to introduce them to how the Metro works. The daughter is an Agatha Christie fan. So we had to talk about "Murder on the Orient Express" for awhile. She's a sci-fi fan, too. Gee, if only she were 20 years older. Her mom and I talked Dr Who. Gee, of only she were 10 years younger, wasn't married, and didn't have kids.

By the time I got back to my cabin the sun was long gone. I sit here at my keyboard watching the dark zip by.

Isaac! That's his name. The Love Boat guy.

[later]

Being in your own cabin sure doesn't mean the train sways any less. I'm almost scared to find out how much it'll swing when I'm in bed and that much closer to the ceiling.

[later still]

Just finished the book I've been reading while in Orlando and wrote up my review. You'll see it in a few days.
I brought down the bed. Isaac helped set it up. I would have missed the security straps. Not really sure if they're to hold the bed up or hold me in as the train swings. There's lights up there so I'm going to start reading my next book up there.

Strike that. I'm gonna watch some movies I dumped on this laptop. It's 11:00 already. I'll just get rocked to sleep while watching... let's see ... Pitch Black might do it. Let's see where the border between being rocked to sleep and shaken senseless is.

[next morning]

I still woke up several times in the night. Mostly due to sudden shakes and noises from the train.
I'd like to try one of those high speed trains in Japan or Europe. These American trains share the same crap tracks as the cargo trains. They're not meant for speed or smooth rides. They're just there to keep you going in the right direction.

I'd like to say that trains are going to become more popular as the gas prices rise. But you've seen the prices at the pump. $4/gal for unleaded and $5/gal for diesel. In two or three years I'm gonna look at this entry and laugh about how cheap gas was. Kind of like thinking about the first time I saw some con artist charging a whole buck per gallon just because he was the only station you could find in 20 miles.
Oil is oil. If it goes up for airlines and cars ...

Holy crap, I think we left the rails for a moment there. First one side and then the other. It's bad enough when you feel the wheels on one side touch down on the rail.

...it'll go up for trains as well. And if you're traveling coach planes are the same price as trains.

It's kind of depressing going this way.
There's plenty of old abandoned rail stations. At the very least they'd make for good restaurants.
I have to wonder how many of these towns we're going through are really this poor and how many are just that poor along the tracks. One town looked like that may have been main street at one point. Now 1 out of every 5 shops is boarded up and the rest don't exactly look profitable. The street has had lots of cracks filled but probably hasn't been resurfaced in 20-30 years.
I've lost count of the number of mobile homes we've passed. I can't even say most are in parks. Somebody had a plot of land, a few vehicles on blocks, and a mobile home.

The Spanish Moss has vanished. As have the plants with point leaves. We must be out of Florida.

The engineer does love his horn. I don't think it honked this much on the way down.

[near the end]

Just been reading and letting the speeding greenness out the window hypnotize me. Took a few pictures of some swampland.
The hamburger was awful.

Tomorrow it's back to work. Feh.

Enchanted Forest

I went back out to Merritt Island to get a look around and see if I could get a better look at the shuttle assembly building or anything. Turns out there's a lot of gates that I didn't see yesterday. I didn't see anything new.

Instead of turning around and heading back I took a different route. Shortly after leaving the island I found the "Enchanted Forest Wildlife Preserve".

I pulled up and looked inside the building. There was one person way back in her office but that was it. So I grabbed a map and headed out. Driving around the area there's lots of foliage just off the road. I kept wanting to pull over and poke around. This was better.

There were about a zillion of those Florida lizards.
I saw ant lions in their natural habitat.
I got a good close look at spanish moss. It's clearly in the bromeliad family.
There were lots of other kinds of bromeliad growing wild. Itty bitty ones and ones the size of my foot.
I saw my first live armadillo. It didn't seem to notice or care that I was there. It just went shuffling around under the filth. There was also a huge orange tree that crept in from one of the area orange farms.

I didn't hit all the trails. Most are in the shade and I scurried in places that weren't shaded. But there's just enough trails and it's humid enough that even I had to bow out after a few miles. But I snuck out with some tiny bromeliads and an orange that fell in the path.

Not even a good try

I loan some video games and DVDs to the neighbor kids. All but the Grand Theft Auto games. For those I insist upon a note from their parents. The kids insist their parents don't care and I believe them. I'm still not loaning them these games without a note.

So a couple of kids show up about half an hour ago (this is Tuesday the 27th at 6:47 PM). They have a note and a busted digital camera. The note is written in a horrible scrawl on the back of a movie ticket stub. It says "My son [scribble] have". They say one of their dads wrote it but can't agree on whose it was. They explain that the scribble is "can" and there's an "it" squished at the very bottom. Also, someone's dad wanted me to have his digital camera.

Now, this is DC so I can almost accept that their father is a barely literate buffoon with the handwriting of a kindergartner. But I think even he would use something better than the back of a movie ticket and give me a VERY broken digital camera. So I let them tell their story a bit before telling them I don't believe a word of it and why.

I go back inside. I open the bedroom window. They've gotten another piece of paper and their pencil stub and are sitting on my front porch writing another note on a slightly larger piece of paper. I lean out the window and watch them bicker it out for about a minute before I'm noticed. They run off.

A bit later I take out some garbage. They're at the corner sitting on the sidewalk working on their note.

This note.


That's right. They came back and tried to sell me this nonsense again.

Train

I left work at noon to catch a 3:00 train. Got home, threw a few last things in a bad, buy nibbles, and off to Union Station. Amtrak says show up half an hour early. I got there closer to an hour and a half early. If you know where you're going and what you're doing they're right, half an hour should do.

As it was Union Station was still in the middle of the lunch rush. High school tours and business people everywhere in addition to the people trying to get to their train. It was worse than navigating from one gate to the next in an airport.

The line at the ticket counter moved pretty fast. They had more agents than most airlines have windows AND automated machines. My info came right up instead of the agent spending 10 minutes working on their novel or whatever they're doing pushing all those buttons. Checking my bag consisted of "here's my bag", "Ok, here's your stub. NEXT!" I went off and got some lunch. Ate at my leisure. Bought new headphones at the music store. Went to the gate. Had half an hour still to go. People started lining up at 15 minutes until departure. At 10 til they let through the elderly and people with kids. The rest followed about a minute later.

We went down an escalator to a filthy platform between to trains. It looks easy enough to clean. A good ladder, a hose, a soapy brush most of the grime should wipe right off. As we moved down the platform it started to look more like what you'd expect a train platform to look like from the movies. Metal beams, lots of rivets, and unpainted wood stopping the rain. It looks like the filth was from diesel engines idling in an enclosed area. Seats were assigned as you actually got on the train.

Seating is like first class on a plane but without the arm rests. There's one arm rest by the window and one on the rather ample aisle. They support elbow to mid-forearm. That is to say they're nigh worthless. I rested my arm on the window sill most of the time instead. The seats are big and have plenty of leg room but are not comfortable. About half the passengers moved to the refreshment car instead.

The train moved very slowly from Union Station to Alexandria where it stopped again. DC and the surrounding area was the only part of the trip where we were actually running on elevated platforms over the city instead of blocking traffic. I'm sure everybody involved appreciated that.

I watched out the window for a long time. This is a great way to see the wide diversity of scrub brush along the east coast. Lots of really tall weed things. Some areas plant bamboo or some ancient tall grass along the tracks to make them look better. Other places plant plants. Chemical plants. Gravel plants. The backs of malls. Stuff like that. And you really can't tell the grafitti in DC from that anywhere else along the coast.

There's really two speeds on a train. A slow creep and too damn fast. You could walk the slow creep. Too damn fast means the train is shaking because it wobbles so much on the rails. I've been on rollercoasters that didn't shake that much. Not many, but a few. To be fair there were some places where we went a speed that shook that weren't scary.

Supper is by reservation in the dining car. The booths are comfortable. The food is reasonably priced and not bad.

And then there was sleep. Or at least an attempt at it. You can lean back 20° or so and put out a leg rest. But that's not nearly enough. That was the most uncomfortable bed I've ever slept on. Remember, the guy saying that slept on his office floor for two months, his couch for a year and a half, and has gone camping on really rocky ground.

I picked up my book about half an hour down the track. Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express". I finished it 15 minutes before pulling into Orlando. I also spent time doing really scribbly crossword puzzles in pen and listening to audio books.

So for $94 I made it from DC to Orlando in 19 hours. For about the same price I could have taken a plane in 3-4 hours. There's really just no reason to take a train other than the experience of having taken one or a fear of flying.

Kennedy Space Center

Kennedy Space Center is Disneyland for nerds. It's located near Orlando, has rides, exhibits, and isn't what you wanted anyway.

When buying tickets for a Shuttle launch the most important thing to do is to know somebody. Whether you want the big air conditioned room or the site with the big clock you need to know somebody who can set you up.

If all you want is to be nearby then Kennedy Space Center is a good place. Even then you should probably buy tickets there and come back later for the show. I bought mine over the internet and got some rather lame tickets. There's yellow, blue, green, and purple tickets. The colors get you on tour buses to show you the rest of the structures on the island. All except the blue ticket. The blue ticket gets you in and that's it. I had a blue ticket.

Shortly after writing this I intend to drive back out and see how many of those roads are publicly accessible when it's not a launch day.

The latest you want to get there is three hours before hand. They start closing the roads two hours before hand. I left my hotel about 10:00 and got parked a little after 11:00. About the time the traffic passed over highway 1 it stopped. We then crept along for another 45 minutes before getting parked.

There are museums, displays, rides, and overpriced vendors everywhere. The museums don't really cover much you won't see at the Air and Space Museum in DC or the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS. But this place has several old rockets standing or lying about outside. There are capsules, modules, and gangplanks you can climb in and walk along. There's a truly awesome kiddie play area. There's a shuttle replica you can walk through and see what they look like inside. There's a large building with a launch simulator ride. I'd suggest doing all this when it's not a launch day. Yes, KSC is open every day but Christmas but on launch days there's lines.

The main show floor has a big, but not really all that big, TV and bleachers you can sit on. You can sit out in the Florida sun and bake for several hours while you protect your spot and watch NASA TV. And when the Shuttle finally launches behind those flag poles off to the left there's a big honking tree in the way.

I picked a different spot. I found a place on the good side of the trees AND in the shade. And I only had to sit there for 3 hours protecting it. Because once people realized I had a good spot everyone else wanted in, too. It was along the sidewalk that runs along their pond. In the pond are several large turtles, softshelled tortoises mostly, and a couple of alligators. But as launch time approached the railing along the pond filled up and I had to join them or lose my view.

You can't see the launch site from KSC. But if you pick a good spot you can see the trees that the Shuttle will launch behind. Then you see a column of smoke with a bit of flame at the top. A good eye can make out the rocket boosters. Kind of anti-climactic. It's really much better on the NASA site or via YouTube.

After the launch I hit one last museum that talks about the nature preserve on the island. Everybody was leaving, traffic would be awful, why not find something better to do? When I finally got back to my car I sat and read for more than an hour before heading out. I waited until the main driveway was clear. But it wasn't long before I hit the car blockage again. I missed the turnoff but didn't really care. That was until 15 minutes and a mile later with 8 more miles to go before the main highway. I turned around to the road I really wanted. I got several miles before that jammed up too. But I only had two miles of jam to sit through.

Anyway, I was there, but I don't feel like I was there. Probably the best thing to do is rent a boat and get as close to shore as you can. You'll get a better view.

Pictures soon.

Saturday extra

Woke up to country music because apparently that's all they play in Florida.
Got a free breakfast up the hall.
It's pushing 10:00.

Launch is scheduled for 5:02 PM. Double checking... yep 7 hours to go. The window sign says I need to be at Kennedy Space Center by 2:00.

There no address on the website or paperwork. I can't just punch it into my GPS system and go. I'll have to resort to...MAPS! Satellite footage and maps don't completely line up.

I guess I'll grab a book and head on out. The brochure make it look like I can kill a day out there.

Phil Plait, the blogger behind the Bad Astronomy website and related books is gonna be there. I couldn't find a copy of his book to get him to sign. No guarantee we'll be at the same place anyway.

No bags, no pretty much everything. I should be able to take my camera, however.

I'm off.

I'm enroute to Orlando.

Washington, DC (METRO)
Alexandria
Richmond
Petersburg
Virginia/North Carolina border
Rocky Mount
Raleigh
Cary
Southern Pines
Hamlet
North Carolina/South Carolina border
Camden
Columbia
Denmark
South Carolina/Georgia border
Savannah
Georgia/Florida border
Jacksonville
Palatka
DeLand
Winter Park
Orlando

Doctor Who's new Executive Producer

Russell T Davies is leaving Doctor Who after this season. He's the one credited with making the new show a hit, as well as the spinoff "Torchwood", and there's been much nail biting over whether the show will survive the new guy. But I just found out that Dr Who writer Steven Moffat will be taking the helm.

Moffat wrote all the good "hide behind the couch" episodes since the show came back. He wrote the two parter "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" with the little boy in the gas mask who keeps calling for his "maaaaaaah-meeeee". He wrote "The Girl in the Fireplace" with the clockwork robots. And he wrote the truly terrifying "Blink" with the statues that move when you're not looking at them. He also wrote the bit where Doctor 10 (David Tennant) and Doctor 5 (Peter Davidson) met. He's probably best known as the creator and sole writer for the British version of "Coupling".

Hearing that Moffat is taking over Doctor Who is kind of like hearing that Joss Whedon was doing Wonder Woman. You just don't need to hear anything else about it. It WILL work. (Yes, I know Joss Whedon is off the project. If that's how the producers are thinking then clearly it has "FAIL" written all over it.)

Business name FAIL

Seen on 14th street on my way to work.


From Monty Python
UNDERTAKER: Morning.
MAN: Good morning.
UNDERTAKER: What can I do for you, squire?
MAN: Well, I wonder if you can help me. You see, my mother has just died.
UNDERTAKER: Ah well, we can help you. We deal with stiffs.
MAN: What?
UNDERTAKER: Well, there's three things we can do with your mum. We can bury her, burn her, or dump her.
MAN: (shocked) Dump her?
UNDERTAKER: Dump her in the Thames.
MAN: What?
UNDERTAKER: Oh, did you like her?
MAN: Yes!
UNDERTAKER: oh well, we won't dump her then. Well, what do you think? We can bury her or burn her.
MAN: Well, which do you recommend?
UNDERTAKER: Well, they're both nasty. If we burn her she gets stuffed in the flames... crackle crackle crackle... which is a bit of a shock if she's not quite dead, but quick. And then we give you a handful of ashes, which you can pretend were hers.
MAN: Oh.
UNDERTAKER: Or if we bury her, she gets eaten up by lots of weevils and nasty maggots, which as I said before is a bit of a shock if she's not quite dead.
MAN: I see. Well, she's definitely dead.
UNDERTAKER: Where is she?
MAN: She's in this sack.
UNDERTAKER: Can I have a look? She looks quite young.
MAN: Yes, yes, she was.
UNDERTAKER (calling): Fred!
FRED'S VOICE: Yeah?
UNDERTAKER: I think we've got an eater.
MAN: What?!?
FRED (peeking head round the door): Right, I'll get the oven on.(goes off)
MAN: Er, excuse me, um.... are you suggesting eating my mother?
UNDERTAKER: Er... yeah, not raw. Cooked.
MAN: What?
UNDERTAKER: Yes, roasted with a few french fries, broccoli, horseradish sauce...
MAN: Well, I do feel a bit peckish.
UNDERTAKER: Great!
MAN: Can we have some parsnips?
UNDERTAKER (calling): Fred... get some parsnips.
MAN: I really don't think I should.
UNDERTAKER: Look, tell you what.... we'll eat her, if you feel a bit guilty about it after, we can dig a grave and you can throw up in it.

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

How do you explain to a kid who is too young to have seen an Indiana Jones movie why it should be excited about a new one? It's easy to find those kids. It's almost how kid is defined. It's been 19 years since "Last Crusade". Feeling old yet?

This wasn't the first attempt at Indiana Jones IV. I know of at least three other attempts. One of which I was personally involved with. OK, so the guy writing it leased office space from an old roommate of mine. I still got to meet the man several times and learn a it about what he was writing.

Like "Last Crusade", "Crystal Skull" is very self referential. Marcus Brody is dead but still manages to help Indy out in some small way. Still others return after a long absence. There are reused lines, familiar scenery, traps, and camera work, and even one of the cities on the map is familiar if only you spoke Jovitos. Heck, they even reference one of the Indiana Jones movies that never got made.

I'll try to sum up the movie without giving away anything of value.

Time has passed. It's 1957 Dr. Jones has been busy. Besides archaeology he also fought in the war and spent time working for some intelligence agencies. The movie begins with a military convoy heading to a military base in the desert where some weapons testing is to be done. Soviets manage to infiltrate the base. This is when we first see the hat followed shortly by The Man in the Hat. The Soviets are after something that Indy helped recover 10 years ago and was handed over to "Top. Men." No, not that. Something else. Something that ties the initial adventure into the rest of the movie.

Indy manages to get away, of course, but in doing so manages to get himself in even bigger trouble, of course. He gets out, gets interrogated, returns to school, and is suspended. Then is chases by KGB agents around the streets of wherever he's supposed to be. This whole first half hour or so just doesn't feel very Indiana Jones. Maybe it's just too 1950s. The heavy blue screening certainly doesn't help.

But soon enough we head for South America and the movie flows a bit better. Only a bit. Everything still seems to come a bit too easy.

Skipping a lot, the movie ends with the message that Shia LaBeouf isn't about to pick up the hat for Indiana Jones V if it comes up.

Now the big question. Will I get this movie on DVD? If this were the only Indiana Jones movie I'd probably say no. It's a lot of fun but I don't see myself watching it over and over. But it is Indiana Jones and my copies of the first three are all on VHS. I'll probably buy the inevitable 4-pack when it comes out.

If you've seen the earlier movies you should definitely go see this one.

Movie Review: Superman: Doomsday

Long, long ago, when I was still in high school, Superman died at the hands of a monster called Doomsday. That's when I started collecting comics. Now whenever a superhero dies people joke that the next issue will have four of him until the real one returns a year later.

Last year a straight to video movie came out telling a version of the story. There were a few changes. Much like in Spiderman 3 where it would have been too much of a pain to tell the story about how Spiderman was kidnapped to another dimension to fight a godlike alien with a bunch of other Marvel heroes and returned home with a symbiote that became his new costume so they just had it drop from the sky.

Instead of just having a mysterious box under ground for Doomsday to punch his way out of they had Lex Luthor's people uncover it.
Instead of telling the story of all the other superheroes that tackled him and got their butts kicked before Superman could get there the creature just went straight for Metropolis and they jumped straight into it.
And they wrapped up the title storyline in only 30 minutes.

The aftermath is significantly different for obvious reasons.
The original had a bad clone, a robot, a guy in a suit, and a chunk of Kryptonian tech all pretending to be Superman. The Kryptonian tech kept the body in a crypt that leeched off Superman's powers so he could use it. It was that crypt that brought him back.
This had Luthor steal the body and create an army of Superman clones that he could control or destroy. That is until one of the robots in the Fortress of Solitude realized that Superman was still alive but had heartbeats 17 days apart and recovered him.

Supes gets the black suit from the original story and works on recovering his power instead of putting on a mechanical power suit and teaming up with some of the new Supermen. He then has to go fight one of the clones who has freed himself from Lex's grip and started imposing corporal punishment on the streets of Metropolis.

DC/Warner Brothers has a good team of writers for their cartoons. Whether or not they do for the comics and movies is a discussion for another time. But I am consistently impressed with the writing for their cartoon movies and TV shows.

---

A note: There's one scene where the Superclone fights Toyman and destroys his mechanical spider. A chubby man with a beard who looks and sounds remarkably like writer/director Kevin Smith (because he is) says "Yeah, like we really needed him to bust up the mechanical spider, right? Lame!"
That's because Kevin Smith once wrote a script for Superman V that had a giant robot spider because the producer demanded it.

The whole story. 19 minutes.

Whatever doesn't kill...

list assembled with some help. Forgive a bit of repetition of themes.

...you makes you stronger.
...you makes you stranger.
...you probably hurt like crazy.
...me has just royally pissed me off.
...you can still maim you horribly.
...you should have asked me for help.
...you shows that you can't even kill yourself properly.
...you wasn't what the snake book said it was.
...you shows why you should never trust a cheap hit man.
...me needs to try harder next time.
...you obviously hates me.
...you still might turn you into a lifeless vegetable, unable to communicate with the world yet still able experience every excruciating second of your life [staring up at a 45 deg angle at the same three fluorescent tube light bulbs, the occasional nurse, and the relatives who visit less and less each year preaching to you how they still have hope about your recovery] until they finally decide to pull the life support twenty years later[, but only after a long court battle with people who have never met you think that keeping you alive is better than allowing nature to take its course].

Doctor Who as lesson plan

I've gotten several kids hooked on the new Doctor Who. One is a sharp kid who I can loan my disks and gets most of the references. The other two are waiting for me when I get home so they can come see new episodes. These two went to DC public schools and can't finish reading the opening scroll to Star Wars before it vanishes.

I try to help them understand the references as best I can. It really makes good jumping off points for lesson plans.

One of the first lessons was what a Police Box is and it's historical equivalent here in DC that I mentioned here a couple of weeks back.

One episode features Charles Dickens. The kids knew the name and knew about "A Christmas Carol" but never connected the two.

In one of the early episodes the sun expands and consumes the Earth in about 5 billion years. I was able to give them a brief summary of the life cycles of stars and how in 5-6.5 billion years the sun will expand as the fuel runs out and consume everything out to Mars. This came back later when the Doctor landed on a planet orbiting a black hole. They remembered where black holes come from.

Yesterday they learned about Shakespeare. They knew the name and recognized a couple of quotes. Then they asked if he was dead. I get that a lot from DC kids. No perspective about time and history. When I reminded them that what they were seeing was based 400 years ago in 1599 they knew he was good and dead. They also learned about several words that Shakespeare created.

Another particularly dim local kid can tell me the year that George Washington was born but then asks if I know him. Not "did I know him" but "DO I know him".

Also yesterday was an episode in New York during the Great Depression. I paused several times to explain what points of the story were true. Yes, the economy was so bad in the US that there were Hoovervilles (and what those were) and people were willing to do smelly, filthy work for a dollar a day. Yes, that's when the Empire State Building was built. Luckily they'd seen the Daleks before and I didn't need to explain that they weren't real.

But there were other points that I had to explain weren't real. I can kind of understand why. I mean if black holes are real why aren't sonic screwdrivers. Yes, Earth formed as bits of dust and rock collected and were pulled together into a large mass. No, the space craft of a bunch of giant spider aliens hiding from the Time Lords wasn't what pulled all that dust and rock together in the first place.

They learned about London and the Blitz during WWII. They've learned about Queen Elizabeth and all the attempts on her life. They learned about Madame De Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, King of France.

Plus, I leave the closed captioning on all the time in the hopes that they'll sink in a bit better.

I did the same thing when I loaned them "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" a couple of months ago. They'd heard of a bit more than half the people in the movie but still missed some of the gags like Sigmund Freud and his corndog.
I just realized, I never told them that Bill and Ted's time traveling phone booth was a spoof on Doctor Who's time traveling Police Box.

These aren't the people in your neighborhood

I've started looking up some people in Orlando I know. After all, gonna be down there for who knows how long without even knowing the good dining facilities.

Really, it's not just people I know but two women I once had long distance relationships with.

Alas, one has moved out of Florida a few months ago. We exchanged e-mails several times a day while I was looking for my first job out of college. Played chess by e-mail. Still in touch from time to time. Married, moved several times.

The other, the love of my life henceforth known as "Soul Crusher", has an incredibly common name. I'm finding a couple of dozen of her in Orlando.
My brother knew her as well. He told me some rumor he heard about her. I just today found out it's true. There's her wedding announcement in some archive. 23 June 2002.

Damn fool woman gave up her dream job and moved back to Podunk, KS. Last time we talked she was cutting off all ties before moving there. Fresh start an' all that. But apparently she was still in touch with one guy. Probably went to Orlando, got lonely, no friends, no family, there's this one old voice in her life, mistakes companionship for love and gives up being where she wanted to be and what she wanted to do for him.

She's sodding brilliant she was! Female engineer. And a good one. Wanted to work for NASA. Got a job at Lockheed Martin. When I was there in 2002 I was terrified and hoping that I'd run into her.

But she blew it! She moved back to Podunk. There's nothing in Podunk for her. Nothing but him.

Not that I thought we'd get back together. No, burn me twice and all that.

Still...

Twice upon a time we were mad for each other albeit over the phone. Twice upon a time she tore my heart from me and casually tossed it under some passing car. I'd still look her up from time to time when I was in a particularly depressed and self destructive funk. Never called her.

Still...

Coulda been me. Shoulda been me. I thought she was deliberately messing with my emotions there at the end. Maybe she was. Maybe she was trying to drive me out of her life. Maybe maybe maybe. If I'd been able to keep a cool head maybe I'd have moved to Florida. Maybe if I'd kept a cool head she'd have moved to DC. But if I'd been able to keep a cool head around her the relationship wouldn't have been one where either of us would even consider moving for the other.

He'd better be making her happy. She gave up enough for him.

Stuff

It's about 1 PM on Sunday and I'm thinking about this weeks blogs. Not a lot to write really.

I didn't go see Prince Caspian and I probably won't. For the high production values of the first Narnia movie, the sets, CGI, music, adherence to source material, etc. I walked out feeling pretty meh about it. If there were a dollar theater around I might go see it after I read that book.

I'm reading real books again, but none really close to done.

I need to go shopping for new jeans but I'm putting it off until next weekend. I figure I'll go out to White Flint to get jeans, a copy of "Stratego" from the "Toys R Us" out there, and see the new Indiana Jones movie.

My Florida stuff is pretty much covered. I've seriously curtailed my dining out in order to pay for my deck and the Florida trip of indeterminate length. I'll probably be able to pull off both but it'll be tight.

Oh, and I found out that an old... well, not girlfriend, certainly not lover, let's say woman-with-whom-I-shared-an-all-consuming-passion-over-the-telephone got married. More on that tomorrow.

A truck is going to show up some day and haul junk from my backyard so they can start installing the deck. My man Eric told me to throw whatever I want rid of back there. So I'm stepping up a couple of projects and some house cleaning so I can complete said projects. The ceiling in my stairwell is coming down. And hopefully the kitchen ceiling, too before they get here. I probably won't push ahead on those projects for some time due to budgetary purposes. Florida, deck, and save up for a furnace in the fall.

Did some lawn work yesterday.

So, you know, rather laid back weekend really.

Dating

There are some people who have the attitude that dating is no big deal. Some even think it's fun. These people are idiots. These people also get people to agree to date them from time to time. Dating is a hyperstressful hell that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Part of the anxiety comes from the time when showing interest in a woman meant suffering even greater than normal abuse by the bulk of society. "Society" at that point being classmates. If I actually liked a girl I had to be sure to never show it not just to protect myself but to protect her from the abuse that she'd suffer over it. Even when I became generally liked the pattern remained. The only way to show interest was to make it such a huge, overblown show that I couldn't be outdone. Like sprinting through the halls doing jumps and rolls and rather impressive athletic feats just to get to her. At least she didn't reject me. She just made up an active social life until I figured out what she was doing and stopped trying.

Then there was college. The people were much nicer but the rejections were still universal until my junior year. I actually had one woman walk up to me on the sidewalk and say "I will never go out with you" and walk away. Several woman turned me down but couldn't say why. They admitted that I was everything they wanted in a man but they just weren't interested.

I'm long out of college now. I've answered a few personal ads but only one woman every wrote back. I've had a couple of women answer my personal ads since I moved to DC. Most didn't understand that "I don't want children" means that I don't want theirs, mine, or ours. Going out to try to meet women is a total failure. I can start the occasional conversation but never a date. To be fair there have been a few times I find myself talking to someone but I'm so habitualized to being single that I don't realize that I was getting hints to ask them out until several minutes after they left.

I bring this up because I recently responded to the personal ad of a seemingly wonderful and beautiful woman. She wrote back and we went on a date or two. There were some issues that I was willing to work around. But there were two real problems. The first is pretty standard in DC. Or maybe it's standard for any working woman who is still single at 30. I don't know. While she works less than most women I've met in DC she still works 6 days a week. And she's already scheduled most of her off time. I'm not sure why she posted a personal ad. Between work, classes, family, and friends she doesn't have time for anybody new in her life. The second problem is either that she's incredibly sensitive about her schedule and gets angry when someone asks for help finding a time when their schedules sync. Or she's just one of those people who is looking for someone to have a problem with them so they can get angry. Just a bit of feedback about when she was free could have helped so much. Instead I got rage just for asking.

Anyway, it's clearly not going to work out. I think she would have gotten along great with my friends when she'd finally meet them. But there's no real possibility of a romantic relationship. It's been a few days since I've worked this out. Luckily things didn't end with her freaking out and saying she didn't want to talk to me. We did IM and we were able to sort out what happened.

But I really put myself out when I approached her. I didn't get smacked down as thoroughly as some other women have done. But only because she was willing to talk about it after. But it's a huge let down to have to give up on this woman.

We may still be able to be friends, but she's gonna have to be the one to get in touch.

State of the Union (by Adam Bomb)

Something I wrote following the 2003 State of the Union address.

State of the Union (by Adam Bomb)

There are brilliant men and there are men of action, but rarely do the two attributes combine in a single person. Our President, George W. Bush Jr., is the very epitome of perfection in an ideal mesh of those attributes. I mean it! The man is a God! How fabulous is George? Zeus came forth from HIS head! I mean WOW! Did you hear that talk last night? HE'S EVERYTHING MAN HAS BEEN BUILDING UP TO! MILlionS of YeaRsof EvolutION WitheGoAL of GEORGE!!!! GEOOOOOOOOOOREGE!!!!!
It's ok, I'mcalmI'mcalm... I'm calm... (big exhale) I. Am. Calm. Really. I just need my meds. A few cadmium tablets. I get excited sometimes.

Anyway, I was watching the State of the Union address last night with a few of the other guys from the silo. They're getting kind of old, but they can still get it up, if you know what I mean.
After that speech we were all primed. MaX, older fella, still remembers the good old Castro days, kept talking about how George may even be a better President than Ron. I mean most people don't like us. They're happy with their Patriots and Smart Missles and refuse to even consider sending us in. It's like they're embarassed of us or something. But George is really into equal opportunities. For too long my people have
been kept down, insulted, feared, and maligned. We deserve the same opportunites as everyone else! Do we not have Feeling!?! If you Shoot Us Do We Not OoZe? WE JUST WANT TO CONTRIBUTE! To Helpe MaKE THIS woRlD A BETTEre PLACE!!!!! NuKEsssssJUssssTWANNAGO BOOOOOM! BOOM, BABY! BOOM!

(twitch)(twitch)

I've been seeing a therapist for this. He's helped a lot really. I'm much calmer these days. (pop a few more pills) Says I'm pent up. I need a release. I knitted this nice sweater. Do you Like iT? Toook Me alL moNth. Do You Like It!?! DO YOU!!!? ANSWER ME!

(pant) (pant) (pant)

Water. I just need some nice cold water.
Anyway, that Saddam guy is a threat. I had a cousin who used to live in Iraq. He said Saddam's totally loony. That's why I agree with George. You should listen to him and send in us big guns. We know how to deal with guys like him.

-Adam Bomb

Book review: When The Tripods Came

Long, long ago I was in Cub Scouts. And as a Cub Scout I got the magazine Boys' Life. Every month they'd have a one page cartoon that was based on a book. To read the whole story could take years. About the time I started getting them they'd started with the illustrated version of "The Tripods". For years I thought I'd missed a lot of it. But I recently saw all four books in the trilogy (the author went back and make a prequel) at the Friends of the Arlington Library book sale and snatched them up. My Krode was with me and it turned out he had digital versions of the Boys' Life series. I'd only missed a couple of pages.

The books are apparently rather popular in England. Popular enough to have a TV show based on them. Not popular enough for them to finish the show. There have been tales about a series of movies based on the books in the works.

The first book "When the Tripods Came" takes place roughly now. It tells the tale of how the Tripods first came to Earth and took over. They're really no match for our military so they create a TV show which latches on to susceptible minds and makes them huge fans of the Tripods and willing to follow orders. The show is translated into all languages and shown in every country. Viewers start to leave their homes and form communes. Then they spread out and start trying to get people to wear caps that have the same effect as the TV show.
The characters that the book focuses on flee England and face the rampant xenophobia the crisis has generated. They end up with the Swiss in the last refuge on Earth. As it falls they move into the mountains.

It's 150 pages and targeted at probably 5th grade readers. But it's not insultingly bad. Just a short, simple story that leads into three more similar books.

Northwest Passage

Last summer I reported that the Northwest Passage has opened. At least during the summer months it has. I find this simultaneously horrific and wonderful. On the one hand there's global warming and all that. On the other hand it opens up shipping routes and you and I can now cruise places that foiled some of history's greatest explorers. And I said that as soon as there's a cruise going through there I'm going.

Guess what?

Alas, I've already committed myself to my Space Shuttle trip this summer. And my deck is killing my bank account. There's only so much time I can take off work. But next summer, NEXT summer...

My favorite trip so far:
http://www.travelvantage.com/fset3.htm?arc_cr_nwp.html
http://www.condorjourneys-adventures.com/arctic_cruise1.asp
You start in Kamchatka, take a helicopter to an ice breaker off the coast and spend 20 days traveling to Resolute Bay.
Between $12K and $20K depending on your berth.

Another trip shaves off a week, is considerably cheaper, and looks more like a cruise.
http://www.quarkexpeditions.com/arctic/northwest-passage-via-simpson-strait/northwest-passage-via-simpson-strait?gclid=CMPEv6rbmZMCFQF1sgodAVZrwg
It goes from Resolute Bay to Cambridge Bay or vice-versa depending on when you go.
$4,200 - $8,400

My First Earthquake: From Hasbro

I didn't even know it was an earthquake until the next morning when I heard about it on NPR. Otherwise it would have just blended into the day's events. But last Tuesday at about 1:30 there was a quake of about 1.8 on the Richter Scale near DC.

Everybody in the office thought it was something different.

I thought someone was pushing a very large and overloaded cart down the hall one floor up.

My boss thought that the landscaping crew was unloading more boulders and had accidentally dumped them all at once.

Some people thought it was the blasting out at Ft. Belvoir.

There was only the slightest tremble in the building and a loudish rumbling sound.

A couple people don't remember noticing anything.

random photo

Some days I can write a week of these in advance. Other times I've got nothing. Case in point, today. I actually have several old posts but I don't want to put them up for various reasons. So here's a picture I took last summer.
Not really what I was going for. I need to work with the aperture more.

Your mental image for the day

I remember when I was a kid, sitting on the fence with my friends, watching the sun setting slowly over the horizon, chewing a bit of beef jerky, chucking rocks into the minefield.

Gas prices and WalMart

Yes, I'm late. Staff meetings and birthday lunches and whatnot

You know why the price of gas is so high? It's because you shop at Walmart.

reason 1:
Walmart is such a monster of a company that they basically own all their suppliers. Walmart is such a huge part of their sales that they have to do what Walmart tells them or give up >50% of their sales. Walmart tells their suppliers to drop their prices and drop their prices until the company has to say "but we've cut everything that can be cut. We can't go any lower." Then Walmart tells them to move production to China. True. The company doesn't (usually) say "well we'll have to move production offshore". Walmart tells them to go to China or they'll switch suppliers. Without Walmart they're out of business.

So Walmart is cheap and everybody shops there. All our money goes to China. American manufacturing fails. The government borrows money from China. We sent that money to China. We borrow more. Eventually the dollar collapses and can't buy what it once could. So the price of gas goes up.

reason 2:
China's economy takes off because they're selling stuff to America. More and more Chinese can afford cars instead of bikes. Industry gears up and needs to run their factories. They need the oil almost as much as we do. So we get into a bidding war and the price goes up.


I like high gas prices. I don't drive. It forces better choices from those who do. Including this one. If you want cheaper gas and a better economy stop sending your money to China by shopping at Walmart.

Book review: Beholder's Eye

I finished "Beholder's Eye" by Julie E Czerneda a week or so back.

I don't quite feel right reviewing this book. I don't know if it's all the oak pollen in the air or the book itself, but I just haven't felt like reading anything too heavy lately. This book just wasn't holding my attention. But then, a few other books I've picked up lately haven't either. Comic books and cartoon books, sure. That's light and easy and not at all taxing.

So, yes, this book. Sci-fi, of course. The central character is the youngest of a species that lives for thousands of years. It's only 300 years old or so. This species exists in an energy state and can share mass and memories. They take a physical form and go to a planet to learn about them. Once they completely understand a being they can take its form. They do this so that the culture and knowledge of a people can last long past when a culture self destructs or is destroyed.

This central character is off on her first mission. She's supposed to watch the people of a rather primitive people for 10 years. She's taken on a form similar to a dog to do this. It's actually an intelligent species that looks doglike except for fingers instead of pads on the paws. She finds out about some invaders and tags along with some military personnel going to deal with it. The invader turns out to be a first contact team from a large federation of planets. In fact, it's the third first contact team. The first two were never heard from again.

Things happen, and the central character manages to save the crew of the ship and get a ride off planet. She gets home and is in big trouble for letting her true identity get discovered.

She's sent back out with a new mission known only to her and the eldest of her people. A creature from a distant galaxy has arrived and is killing and destroying intelligent life. Her job is to gather information and return. Naturally, the mission parameters shift a bit.

The people of the federation have some idea what she is and assume that she's the threat destroying colonies and outposts along the rim. The creature finds out about her people and comes for them.

The book is good. It is. It tells the story well. It establishes the friendship between her and a human that becomes a regular companion through the rest of the story. It covers the adventures she has before the main storyline really gets going.

No science to speak of. Fantasy would be a better description.

My only complaint is that it took me so long to finish because I just couldn't pay attention. And I don't know if it was the writing or the pollen.

Movie review: Iron Man

Holy crap! A summer blockbuster that actually lives up to the hype.

First, a brief history of the Iron Man movie as seen by the public.

When they first said they were making an Iron Man movie I didn't expect much. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Hulk, these are the first string heroes. They're who movie makers start with. If you do well with them, and those movies were pretty hit and miss, then you start trying to make money from the second stringers and even third stringers. Ok, some would argue Iron Man is a first stringer, but this is his first movie so he's a second stringer. Most geeks heard about Iron Man and expected a disaster. But we thought the same thing about Lord of the Rings.

Then they announced that Robert Downey Jr would be playing Tony Stark (the man inside the suit). Suddenly there was hope. The studio was a bit scared of RDj but the geeks knew he was the right man for the job. They're both wealthy, arrogant, womanizing, alcoholics. It's a perfect match.

Then we got the screen shots of the outfit. We were blown away. They got the look right and some great actors.

But it could all still go wrong. The more hype there was the more we dreaded. But we lived in hope. This could still rock.

And it did. Oh, this movie rocked so hard. I'm not a big reader of Iron Man so I can't really compare to the comics. Mostly I know of Iron Man from his recent role in superhero registration and firing The Hulk off to a distant planet. He's a genius who works with Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four a lot. He has a history of alcohol abuse.

What really struck me about this movie is the lack of a villain. There's bad guys, sure, but no classic villain. Tony Stark is his own worst enemy.

The movie starts with Tony returning from a weapons demonstration in a Humvee convoy. Terrorists attack and capture him. They keep the PG13 rating by keeping out the blood, but the blasts and the holes getting ripped in the Humvee and the soldiers dropping left and right were realistic and shocking enough that I might have upped it to R. Tony gets captured and taken to a cave where the terrorists want him to assemble on of his missile launchers for them.

So the weapons he designed and his company built to protect American soldiers is in the hands of terrorists and is why he's been kidnapped.

Flashback a day and a half. We see how much of a playboy, smart ass, care for nothing, party animal he really is. Then back to the cave where Tony has built a mini-reactor to power the electro magnet that is keeping metal fragments from penetrating his heart. Then he builds a prototype power suit that has to be navigated more by counting steps than seeing where he's going. But it still kills a lot of terrorists, sets a lot of stuff on fire, and flies a short distance. But it crashes in the desert and he leaves it behind.

Back home he tries to shut down the weapons division until he can figure out how to make better use of his money and company. He retreats into his lab and starts work on his new suit. This covers a lot of movie but you find you don't really mind. It's just fun to watch Stark interact with his robots and play with his new suit.

Meanwhile, the terrorists have found his old suit. Once more, Tony's creation is falling into the hands of bad people. But when he goes to deal with them in person it's a cake walk. Bip bop boop, done. But still quite entertaining.

The movie comes together at the end with him facing a giant, amped up version of his first suit.

Iron Man is all about cleaning up Tony Starks messes.

The whole thing sets up for a couple of sequels, a spin-off or three, and a crossover.

Really, this takes the best of Batman and Superman with the light heartedness of Spiderman or Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

It may not have the wide appeal that Batman Begins had but it's right up there.

Go see it. Go sit through the credits. Go get it on DVD.

Terry Pratchett

Recently the author Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series, was diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer's. I don't know what makes his unique, but he says that if you have to have Alzheimer's then this is the kind to have.

He recently gave $1,000,000 for research into a cure. When giving the money he also gave a speech. You can hear it below.

part 1


part 2

Bond Martini

I've been reading some old Ian Flemming James Bond books. Some are spot on for the movies and some are WAY off. James doesn't show up in "The Spy Who Loved Me" until near the end.

In "Casino Royale" Bond orders his classic martini. Alas, I didn't bookmark the page so I can't find it again easily. But that's what Google is for. Alas, 50-some years have passed since that book was written. Formulas have changed. You can't make the same martini. But there are some substitutions that can get you close.

Follow the link and I'll let this person explain.

http://bartendersbaby.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/the-real-james-bond-martini/