11.20.2006

This House Is Clean

I have just finished reinstalling my operating system and all other files on my laptop. My computer is squeaky clean.

Oh, and by the way, I was in Disney World for the last week.

11.08.2006

Pineapple Express


It's rained a lot the last few days here in Seattle. That's what happens when moist air blows up from the Southeast. I think this picture sums it up quite nicely.

11.07.2006

Shuffling Cards Is Hard Work

It's always weird when my Chemical Engineering background shows its ugly face in unexpected places.

I've been working on a collectible card game for the last couple of months and have just completed the second major revision of my game concept. One of the more annoying hassles with these revisions is that I have to print out, cut and then shuffle the revised deck. It always bothers me that putting the new deck together takes almost as much time as the re-design does.

I've managed to reduce the printing and the cutting to about as efficient a process as they can be without investing in new tools. There's definitely more fat to trim, but I need to wait until I know exactly what the base deck is going to look like.

Until recently, shuffling was the real beast and wildly inefficient in that I could spend a significant amount of time shuffling with a mechanical card shuffler and still come away with a deck that I just KNEW wasn't as random as it should be. The deck is currently quite large (I'll shrink it once I have a stable mechanic and can use play testing to figure out what the minimum optimal size is) so it's difficult to get all the cards spread out through the deck.

Usually what I do is split the cards (which start off as a highly ordered stack where numerous cards of the same type are all right next to one another) into a number of smaller decks that can be processed through the mechanical shuffler. I then split each of these smaller sub-decks in half, combine halves from different sub-decks and then run each recombined sub-deck through the shuffler a number of times. I then split each subdeck in half again and repeat the process. If I'm methodical I can get a decent amount of randomization across the deck, but I have to shuffle a number of different sub-decks that is, at minimum, equal to the square of the initial number of sub-decks. Even after all that, the amount of randomization is sub-optimal.

Shuffling is annoying and I hate doing it. So, having printed and cut the most recent revision, I decided to take a shower and vote before getting down to the business.

Oddly enough, showers seem to be where I've had most of my (hopefully) good ideas regarding my card game, and today was no different. My mind was wandering haphazardly around the topic of card shuffling, when I suddenly thought about, of all things, molecular diffusion.

Imagine if you will, a large tank filled with salt water. Then imagine that I very carefully and slowly add another volume of water, this time with no salt dissolved in it, such that the layer of fresh water essentially sits on top of the salt water. The dissolved salt will immediately begin to diffuse via brownian motion into the fresh water. The water will also diffuse from the fresh water layer into the salt water layer, though probably at a slower mass rate.

Diffusive mixing of liquids is an exceedingly slow process. I remember reading in one of my mass transfer texts that after a year the diffusing molecules described in the system above would only have managed to penetrate a few centimeters into the other layer. This why you stir when you want to mix two things together rapidly. Adding convection into the mix greatly increases the rate of mixing.

And that's the mental leap. Shuffling cards in the previously described manner is essentially a macro version of diffusive mixing. No matter what I do, it's going to take a long time to randomize the molecules, err I mean cards. The only way to increase the rate of mixing is to add in convection. So that's what I did.

I grabbed two large plastic tubs from the basement closet under the stairs and dumped the entire revised deck into one of the tubs. I then transferred those cards into the other tub by letting them fall into it over a distance of a couple of feet. Within about five minutes, the deck was entirely random. Now all I have to do is go through all the cards, repack them into a proper deck and flip half of them around. That will still take far less time than it would have to properly randomize the deck via diffusive mixing.

11.01.2006

Sir! Please Put The Christmas Wreath Down!

My partner sent out this email about something that happened last night. I'm just going to paste it here for posterity.

Happy Halloween!

You'll never believe the hilarious end that Aaron and I had to our Halloween night.

We go all out for Halloween with ghosts, ghouls, gravestones, dead bodies, cauldrons, mannequins - the works - and thus we've plunked quite a bit of money into decorations. In past years, teenagers have decided to steal some of the decorations out of our yard late on Halloween night and so we've begun the habit of moving all decorations into the garage after the last trick or treater to avoid theft.

By about 9:00 p.m. Halloween night, the trick or treaters had peetered out and Aaron and I, along with our friend, Suzanne, began to remove our Halloween deocrations from the front garden. This took only approximately 20 minutes (setting up takes 2 days!). Suzanne then took her leave and Aaron and I began to take care of the mannequins and pumpkins that were inside the house. By 9:30 p.m., I was standing on a stool on the back balcony removing a hanging ghoul. I noticed a group of late trick or treaters walking across the street. I quickly jumped down and shouted to Aaron to turn off the lights and close the blinds (as this is what you do when you don't want anymore trick or treaters). I ran inside and helped blow out candles and the like until the inside of the house was completely dark and all Halloween decorations had been removed.

Aaron sat down to work at his computer in the dark kitchen while I ran downstairs to fetch the Fall wreath to put on the front door. When I returned to the main floor, I noticed a light flash across our side windows. I didn't think much of it until I looked through the window adjacent to our front door and saw two people moving around in our front yard with flashlights. I moved closer to the door and noticed two police cars outside and recognized that the people in the front yard were police officers.

"Aaron?" I called into the kitchen, "Why are their police officers on our front lawn?"

Assuming the officers were looking for a thief who had escaped into our neighborhood I opened the front door, the fall wreath still clutched in my hand, and walked out onto our porch. The porch was pitch black as we had turned off all outside lights in addition to those inside. Suddenly, flashlights were pointed at me and a voice shouted at me from the yard (our porch has a half flight of stairs down to the yard).

"Sir! Please step down here! Quickly, Sir!" The voice boomed from behind the flashlight.

I descended our front stairs assuming that I was in danger as there was a "bad guy" using our backyard to hide from the police and the officers were attempting to protect me. I came face to face with one of the officers, a stocky, somewhat attractive white male, and he looked at me very seriously and continued to speak in his firm tone.

"What do you have in your hand? Do you live here, Sir!? Who are you?"

For a fleeting moment, I thought my friends had gotten me a stripper and this was all a joke. But then I noticed a third police car pull up to the house and before I knew it, six police officers were surrounding me. They continued to ask me who I was and if I lived in this duplex. I kept explaining that my partner and I lived in the house and that it was a single-family dwelling, not a duplex. I also explained that it was just a Fall wreath in my hand and I slowly set it down on the front steps.

By now, Aaron had descended the stairs and joined me on the front lawn. The officers continued to pummel us with questions and we kept explaining that we lived at this residence and that there was no one else in the house. They didn't seem to believe us and they kept asking the same questions over and over.

One of the officers checked Aaron's car in the driveway and asked if one of us was Aaron Cooke. Aaron, of course, raised his hand in response.

The head officer finally explained that a burglary had been reported at our house and they needed to confirm that we were not the burglars! The lightbulb went off in my head and I told the officers that we had quickly removed our extensive Halloween decorations and it may have looked as if we were robbing the house - especially when I was high on a stool on the balcony removing a hanging ghoul.

Two of the officers then asked if they could come inside with us and examine our ID's. We continued to explain that the fast removal of our decorations most likely looked suspicious to a neighbor who had not yet met us. When the officers entered the house, they saw the back balcony and it became clear to them that the neighbor assumed that the back balcony was the entrance to the second-half of our supposed "duplex" and my actions to remove the ghoul very much could look as if I was breaking and entering.

The officers examined our ID's and clearly saw that we did indeed live in the house. By then, the officers had calmed down and began laughing with us over the circumstances. At that point, a fourth police car pulled into our driveway! The officers explained that they take burglary calls very seriously and had responded within minutes (no lie!) to the 911 call from our neighbors.

As the officers apologized and thanked us for our cooperation on their way out the door, I asked them if they'd be willing to take a picture with us as our friends would never believe what happened.

Five officers posed with us on our front stairs - the sixth officer took the picture and the other two remained in their car.

As they departed, I jokingly told the lead officer that I thought, at first, he might be a stripper. This caused all of his colleagues to burst into laugther. He looked up at me sheepishly and told me that I had just given his fellow officers teasing ammunition for weeks to come. I apologized, but he then grinned at me. I think I gave him a bit of an ego boost that night!

So...if you live in West Seattle and your report a burglary, know that four police cars and eight officers will come to your rescue!

Enjoy the pic of Aaron and I with Seattle's finest! We're considering using it as this year's Christmas picture!

Happy Halloween!!

Scottland & Aaron


10.30.2006

A Bio-luminescent Future

Saturday was the annual Halloween Party at the HOF. Pictures will be forthcoming. My main contribution to the party (besides general help setting it up) was in the lighting department. In particular, I contrived to generate mason jars full of a murky liquid that radiated an eerie glow in a variety of colors. Most party goers seemed to be pretty impressed by them. I know I was.

At one point in the evening, I spoke to Elyse about a concept I have that's related to my science fiction novel. In the novel, a small group of people have access to some pretty far out bio-engineering technology. One of the many non-reproductive artificial life-forms they've created is a type of tree/bush that constantly produces small fruit-like organs. These fruit-like bodies produce luciferin during the day and luciferase at night. The enzyme (luciferase) and the substrate (luciferin) combine after dark to generate a soft green (or whatever color you want I suppose) glow and are used as a means of lighting public spaces (and private ones as well, I suppose.)

Anyhow, the point that I'm getting to is that said organisms already exist!

10.26.2006

Gay Book Signings Are Not Different From Straight Books Signings!!!

'Twon and I were chatting on the phone this morning. After a while we got off track and started wandering through a discussion of what makes a twink a twink. We bumped into Lance Bass, who kindly offered himself up as a proto-typical (though rapidly aging) twinkbot. Naturally, he was followed (at a respectable distance so as not to get any twink on his smooth, worked out chest) by Reichen.

Distracted by all things Reichen (Did you know that his original name was Richard and that he's not actually a German citizen?) I sent 'Twon on his merry way. Perusing through Reichen's personal website I discovered that he's just written a book on being closeted and in the Air Force Academy.

He wants you (the potential book purchaser) to know that you DO NOT need an invitation (it's at the bottom of the book tour schedule) to attend a book signing. For some reason, I find this amusing. If I ever manage to get something published, I hope I don't have to make this clarification to my potential readers.

Oh, and by the way, in case you were lucky enough to be invited, the appropriate dress for a Book Party at the Broadway Bar and Grill is business casual, not a fishnet thong.

10.21.2006

I Have Seen It

My prediction for future episodes of BSG.

Baltar will be put in some sort of position of power over the Cylons as a counter to the loss of consensus that the Cylons appear to be experiencing. This jives pretty well with the original series.

I'm still waiting for the Space Nazi's and the Glowing Angels.

10.19.2006

Inflatable Klingon War-Birds

In Robert Jordan's blog, a recent entry talks about how a writer friend had died. One of the works of this fellow that Jordan mentions is "How Much For Just The Planet?" Jordan considers this to be the only Star Trek comedy ever written.

The little gears in my brain start spinning and I think to myself, "I've read what can only be described as a Star Trek comedy. I wonder if it's the same book?" I pop over to Amazon and look the title up. Sure enough, it IS the novel in question, one of only two I've ever consumed.

I'm not sure I would consider it "good" but it does contain a number of hilarious descriptive scenes that to this day occasionally pop into mind when my brain starts wandering. Just to get a sense of what this literary masterpiece contains, here's a short list of things I remember.
  • Di-lithium cookies sheets.
  • A partially inflated Klingon War-Bird.
  • A Pie fight between the crew of the Enterprise and a number of Klingon diplomats.
  • A replicator that uncontrollably spits peppermint milkshake all over the inside of a cramped escaped pod.
  • An avian-based humanoid star fleet officer that eats what looks like a bird seed ice cream cone.
Good times.

9.21.2006

My Mom Is Famous

Here is the article.

8.13.2006

That Would Ennh Oh

Normally, when I read about something vaguely politics/goverment related in the press I have a "on the one hand, but on the other" reaction. In the case of the recent article in the New York Times on loosening regulations to allow more biomedical testing on prisoners, my reaction is an unequivocal "absolutely not, never, maybe when the sun bloats up and boils away the oceans."

To me, the potential for abuse when you combine a profit motive with prisoners that don't live in a free enviroment and that likely won't understand what it is that they're being asked to do is just so ridiculously high that I think it's absurd that people would even consider it. But then again, a lot of people don't seem to think that prisoners are really people so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

8.10.2006

My What A Big Back Log You Have There

A lot has been accomplished and/or experienced since my last BLOG UPDATE. Here's a quick list:

Went to Sunriver for the week long Bi-Annual Jacobson family reunion.
Rafted the North Upqua.
Visited many exciting volcanic features.
Made much progress on the refurbishment of the yardscape.
Saw Thievery Corporation in concert.
Saw the musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Finished the 1st iteration of my capitalism themed CCG.
Watched much of the one and only season of Firefly.
Took many photos of my cat in various compromising positions.

Needless to say, assuming I ever post again, the next few posts will be about the above topics.

7.19.2006

The Joys of Owning A Laser Printer

I attempted to print some stuff out on heavy weight paper 216 g/m^2 using the color laser printer that Scottland won last year. It didn't go so well. For some reason, the toner wasn't melting to the paper like it should. Instead, it was falling off and smearing all over the paper. I took a look at the Owners Manual and saw that it contained hardly any useful information. Basically, it told me how to set the printer up and install new paper and toner.

I talked to Rob (Amy's boyfriend) and he suggested that I try using a more glossy type of paper. He also suggested that I go to Paperzone, which is located in SODO, right across the street from the really fancy two level Krispy Kreme. At Paperzone, I had a frustrating conversation with one of their employees. Basically, she told me that guessing the type of paper that would work in a laser printer was a roll of dice. She helpfully pointed out the free samples of paper that you could take to test your printer on. I grabbed a few of those and went home.

My hunch all along had been that I simply didn't have the printer set-up correctly to handle heavy paper like this. After I got home, I ran the samples of paper and had the same problem, though I noticed that the lightest weight paper I grabbed had the least problems. I went through the Owner's Manual more carefully and noticed some references to a "User's Guide." I went through the pile of stuff that came with the printer and found no User's Guide. Then I went to the Dell website and searched through the online technical documentation. After a while, I found the Users guide. It pretty clearly wasn't something that would have been packaged with the printer, as it was more like an interactive help file for your computer than a publishable document.

So, I downloaded the User's Guide and went through. I quickly figured out how to change the weight of paper the printer was expecting to encounter and ran through a couple of print jobs to see if the changes to the printer settings had any effect. Everything printed just fine. And now, I can print onto card stock.

Exciting, no?

7.15.2006

Hear My Prayer, Lord of Destruction

Some interesting visuals for your persual.

7.12.2006

Magic Mushrooms Are Scientifically Groovy

From the Seattle Times ne Washington Post.

Psilocybin, the active ingredient of "magic mushrooms," expands the mind. After a thousand years of use, that's now scientifically official.
What I'm more curious about is why some people have positive experiences while others have negative experiences.

7.09.2006

The Office

This is my office. I just love me some of that bright yellow paint. It's a very warm and inviting room and I don't like leaving it.

7.03.2006

Scary Scary

I was perusing LGM and other blogs they link to, and eventually happened onto a comment that led to this blog entry.

She sums the whole thing up nicely and without all the bloviating clap-trap you see on most right and left blogs these days. All I have to add is, "what in the nine hells is wrong with people these days?"

It seems like the internet makes people more comfortable with busting out the type of stuff that you'd usually only hear the crazy haired guy wearing the 'JEEBUS IS COMING!!!!!!!!!' sandwhich board standing on the street corner say.

6.30.2006

Phases of the Moon

I just took some pictures of my beloved Cascadian House Tiger and put them together as a single piece. I think they're kind of cool. This is a photo-sequence of her reaction to me as I came up from behind with a camera while she was stretched out near the door to the upper porch.

6.26.2006

At long last . . . Something to blog about

After all, I can't imagine that the two people who read this really care to hear more about my daily efforts to revitalize the grounds at Chateu West Seattle.

Scottland and I saw An Inconvenient Truth on Saturday and we both thought it was relatively well done and informative. More so for the S.O. I think, as I've already seen or read most of the technical material. I did not, however, know that China has higher vehicle fuel efficiency standards than the US.

We both agree that the personal material wasn't as good and we would rather have seen more of the presentation. I figure that the personal information was put in for those audience members that would come down with a bad case of the Narcolepsy if they had to sit through two hours of technical presentation. Cynical types claim that the personal information was in there because Al Gore is planning on running for President again in 2008. I'm not quite sure I follow the logic of that argument.

Oddly enough, watching the movie made me think a bit about South Park. This season there was an episode titled Manbearpig that lampooned Al Gore. After I saw the episode I did a quick bit of research and figured out that the episode was specifically mocking Al Gore's global warming talk. Taking the episode at face value, Manbearpig is global warming doesn't really exist. Al Gore is just talking about it as an attempt to get people to pay attention to him.

Now, I don't really have a problem with the show making fun of Al Gore, but I do take issue with those ass-hats trying to take the position that human caused global warming doesn't exist. Scottland says I shouldn't take the cartoon too seriously and he's probably right. Still, I'm just bothered by it.

5.26.2006

X-Men 3 : The Last Stand

Saw it with Ron, Andrea and Ryan. I wasn't very impressed. Ron put it best with, "Better than Star Trek 3, Worse than Star Trek 1."

4.26.2006

Jacked Into the GRID

I'm posting from my laptop while sitting at my desk in my fancy new, bright yellow ofice. I will post pictures later. This room is 100% undiluted Aaron.

Also, for those who were burning up inside wanting to know the answer, it turns out that the problem with one of the CD's from Amazon was caused by the CD drive in my lap-top beginning to crap out. The other CD really was defective. It looked like someone had leaked some kind of solvent all over the read side of the disc.

4.20.2006

UPDATEUPDATEUPDATE

Long time no post. Since my last post I have dropped out of graduate school, moved back to Seattle and am now living with my partner, Scottland. In the future, I will attempt to be a published writer of some sort. A more in-depth update will be forthcoming, though I have a hunch that the five or so people that read my blog already know most of the details.

In the meantime, please read this pro-nuclear power article written by the founder of Greenpeace.

3.06.2006

Do Never Buy CD's From Amazon.Com

I don't know if anyone else has ever had this problem, but two of the four CD's that I purchased with a miniscule fraction of my casino winnings (story coming soon) were defective. I'm listening to the fourth right now and hopefully it won't be defective as well. Luckily for me, Amazon has a pretty robust return policy. Still, I have NEVER purchased a CD and discovered it to be defective after purchase until now. I guess that explains why their prices are so much lower than the CD's you buy in the music store.

2.27.2006

Wet Squall

Apparently, a tropical air mass has impacted the southwestern US coast. It caused some rather interesting events this evening.



So my roommate Carolyn and I are sitting in the living room talking about the dogs when the wind really starts picking up and the rain starts pounding down. We run outside and watch in astonishment as somewhere around an inch of water comes down in only a few minutes while the trees are whipping around on account of the strong gusts of wind that are blowing through. We both thought it was really weird.

About 15 minutes later Carolyn is watching TV and I'm in my room when I hear the emergency broadcast system come on. I pad out to the living room and sure enough, it's not a test. Basically, there's a extreme thunderstorm warning for the middle valley being posted. A squall line is passing through at 40 mph and we can expect heavy winds (gusts to 60) and heavy rains. The warning then advised everyone to seek shelter in doors and away from windows. Then it repeated in Spanish.

Now, what's kind of funny is that we got the warning about 15 minutes after it happened and were outside when it blew through.

After I figured out what was going on, I went to weather.com and found the local 300 mile doppler radar loop. On that loop you can clearly see the squall line as it's the vertical line of orange. The pictures are in chronological order from earliest to latest.





























2.20.2006

Blast From The Past

So I'm going through some old files from a back-up I did of my desktop in 2003 and I found some pictures of Stromboli when she was a kitten.



2.13.2006

Scottland's Visit

It was an exciting weekend, let me tell you. After Scottland arrived on Friday evening we:

(1) Ate Del Taco
(2) Watched BSG and other sundry Sci-Fi
(3) Went to bed
(4) Got out of bed
(5) Went to Posh Bagel
(6) Scottland then read a book while I beat my head against my take-home midterm.
(7) Got chinese food.
(8) Scottland watched the first three episodes of Stargate : SG1 on his DVD player while I continued to beat my head against the midterm.
(9) Went to bed.
(10) Got out of bed.
(11) Made coffee with the coffee beans Scottland bought at Starbucks on Saturday. Ooops, he forgot to tell me they have twice as much caffeine as normal.
(12) Went for breakfast at Baker's Square.
(13) Went grocery shopping and went to Borders to look at some books.
(14) Scottland packed his bags and left for Seattle.

So yeah, this is the kind of exciting behavior we engage in when Scottland comes to visit.

Sunday Morning Stromboli

I think she's happy . . .

2.10.2006

Gargantuan Black Dragon

I'm still looking for a picture of the Collosol Red Dragon. The relevant details for this mini are on the WOTC website.

2.07.2006

Brokeback To The Future

See the trailer here.

Wardrobe Malfunction?

I was unable to watch any of the Superbowl this weekend. In fact, I didn't even realize that the Seahawks were playing in it until my friend Rod sent me a text message about some touchdown they scored. Learning that the Seahawks were in the Superbowl did help to put Suzanne's comment from our phone conversation that morning about being disappointed that a windstorm didn't knock out all the power to Seattle on the day of the Superbowl into context. I thought she was just being mean. I didn't realize she was being REALLY mean.

That being said, I did manage to watch a solid 15 minutes of Puppybowl II. I highly reccomend the Bissell Kitty half-time show.

2.03.2006

Fabulous Secret Powers

This video is rather amusing.

And here's the journal. I suspect it's not as old as the time stamp says, but maybe it is.

2.01.2006

A Shout Out to Titiano Vicelli

You know you're getting old when it takes three of your gnomish servants to help you into your formal armor. My good friend Titano Vicelli painted this for me over the winter. I just wish he'd remember how to spell my name correctly. But hey, what's an extra lower case "n" in the grand scheme of things. I haven't comissioned a painting of myself since around the time that I was the Grand Inquisitor of Bakeenus. Boy, that was a long time ago. Aust has been in the ground for well nigh thirty years now and it's been a solid 15 since the unfortunate incident with Chadryn and the bone ooze. I don't blame him for not wanting to come back though. The whole coast got to be real nasty once things really started going dark. Needless to say, I'm still quite pleased with my decision to move operations to Manhattan. The business opportunities here are nearly limitless and I'm about as far as I can get from whatever is going on out west.

Flooding the Market With Cheap Labor

The market in question being that of the "adult entertainment industry."

Transcript of interview here. It's Tucker Carlson, but he's actually kinda funny and doesn't make me want to claw out my eyes or stab my ears.

They Live

I saw this movie on the SciFi channel last night. The acting was generally wretched and some of the production quality was bad. That being said, I thought the concept was very cool. I wouldn't mind seeing this re-done, and I'm generally opposed to redoing movies.

The fight scene in the alley is tres-lame, and I think they just threw it in so that Roddy Piper could show off his WWF moves.

Stromboli Update

She's fine. Putting on a bit of weight I suspect and being rather annoying about certain doors being shut. I dont' care much if she scratches at the doors going outside and to the garage, but I'm not going to tolerate her scratching at my roommate's doors. I can't imagine that they enjoy it either. Thus, the squirt gun has been brought out of retirement.


Here's a picture of Stromboli from about two weeks ago. She was splayed out in front of the gas powered wall heater while Scottland and I watched BSG. We weren't sitting on the couch with the digital camera available, so we were unable to get a picture of her doing "Cat Yoga."

Good Morning February

The final weekend in January was nice, with one or two exceptions.

I flew up to Seattle and only thought I was going to die once. Seriously. The plane did something scary that I've never experienced. It was sort of like hitting turbulence, only slower and the plane basically just went from being low at the back and high in the front to low in the front and high in the back. It was like we were suddenly and unexpectedly descending. It's probable that we simply hit a pocket of warmer (and less dense air) and so lost some lift or something. That being said, the flight crew was unexpectedly switching planes once they got to Sea-Tac. Whatever it was, I had enough time to think, "Oh my god, I'm going to die" and get my adrenaline really going. After that, the flight was pretty uneventful, though the landing in Seattle seemed odd in a way I can't describe. Sort of like the problem was over-correcting during maneuvers. *shrug* I was probably just paranoid.

Friday's episode of BSG was pretty good, although I didn't like how the handled some of the flashback stuff. Also, it's hard to imagine that there is that much of a demand for children in a "town" of 50,000. Baltar is apparently having his final break with reality. I wonder if he'll end up in charge of the Cylons like in the original tv show. Maybe it was just because Jamie Bamber was looking extra butch and muscle bound this episode, but it seems like his acting is improving. Either that or he just had better writing and more of a purpose.

Ryan came over and watched BSG with us and then we got in a spirited discussion regarding some D&D stuff. I think we're in agreement that spells that have the potential do lots of damage that do not require a saving throw and are immune to spell resistance are a real problem. I'm looking at you, Crystal Shard and Orb of Force. Maybe there are some exceptions where high damage spells that only require a touch attack are okay, but I'm not sure what they are. Also, it appears that we were using the "Earthen Grasp" Warlock invocation incorrectly. In the Complete Arcane version of the spell, the hands don't have improved grapple and so any attack of opportunity that deals any damage negates the grapple attempt that round. The hands have hardness 4 and so it should be pretty easy for some creatures to negate the grapple. This has been fixed in the Spell Compendium, as the hand does not provoke an attack of opportunity now.

On Saturday, we went to Morton's Steakhouse to celebrate Dana's birthday. Dana is one of Scottland's friends, though she is now my friend as well. Oh Lord. Morton's was good. My gut (haha) instinct is that El Gaucho's is better than Morton's, but not by a whole heck of a lot. I had a nice porterhouse steak and my only regret is that I foolishly ate potato and broccoli while eating the steak and thus could not consume it entirely.

Sunday morning, Scottland, Suzanne and I went to a local cafe (Circa) for breakfast. I highly recommend it. In my opinion, it's at least as good as Jitterbug without the ridiculous lines and the miniscule menu. Marty Durham was going to join us, but on the way over the spaghetti sauce he had made for his D&D group spilled all over the back seat of his car. After breakfast we went back to Scottland's and played three rounds of Puerto Rico. Have I mentioned how much fun this game is?

After that, it was back to Davis for me. Returning after this weekend was harder than usual. Davis always seems kind of blah after being in Seattle. The weather down here is pretty gray and dismal and I'm looking forward to the dry summer heat.

Also, I'm completely in love with Mr. Scottland Jacobsen. Just so we're all clear on that. :)

1.30.2006

Cloture Vote

Looks like the Senate has voted (75-25) to end debate on the Alito nomination. Oddly enough, Patty Murray voted no and Maria Cantwell voted yes. If I were still a resident of the state of Washington, I'd be working this fall to hand Ms. Cantwell her walking papers. Luckily for me, both of my new Senators voted correctly.

1.26.2006

This Will Probably Offend My Mother


I laughed very hard when I ran into this picture on the internet.

Not That It Matters (Since I Don't Live in WA Anymore)

Senator Cantwell,

I'm just writing to let you know that I support Senator Kerry's call to fillibuster Judge Alito. I've been following his nomination from the "blogosphere" and it seems pretty clear to me that the gentleman, while quite intelligent, isn't someone that I want on the Supreme Court of the United States.

With respect to a woman's right to choose (which I strongly support), regardless of the mealy-mouthed non-answers that the judiciary committee allowed him get away with during the confirmation hearings, it's quite clear from his previously stated political (and moral) beliefs that he'll vote in the negative on any case that seeks to preserve a woman's right to choose and in the affirmative on any case that seeks to strip women of said right.

That being said, I'm actually far more concerned about his nomination due to his historical deference to the executive branch in prior cases. Let's face it. We have a President that doesn't really seem to have a lot of respect for the "rule of law" and who seems to think that other two branches of the government exist solely to rubber stamp whatever he decides is best for the country. The last thing this country needs is another judge on the Supreme Court who can be counted on to reflexively vote in favor of further empowering the executive branch whenever possible.

I realize that the chances of a fillibuster actually succeeding are practically nil, but at the very least make some noise. Stand with Senator Kerry and at least say that Alito should be fillibustered. The Democratic Senators should not let this nomination get through the Senate with hardly a whimper of protest. At the very least, PLEASE don't vote to confirm Alito, regardless of whatever sweet deals the Republicans might (not that they will) offer you.

Respectfully,

Aaron Cooke

1.21.2006

This Makes Me Very Happy

As Scottland can attest, I absolutely hate palm trees. No only are they ugly, but they're highly inappropriate in Davis. Just because something can live somewhere doesn't mean it should. Palm trees may be more appropriate in Miami, but it still makes me glad that they're ripping the ugly things out and replacing them with better trees.

1.17.2006

Martin Luther King Hates Sodomites

So I'm at the MU today, and there are two lovely gentlemen standing in front of it holding large placards on sticks. On one side of both placards is a picture of Rev. Martin Luther King and the inspirational message, "I have a dream." On the other side of the placards are alternately "Racism and Sodomy are Sins!!" and "End Racism and Sodomy Today!!!"

I pointed the placards out to one of my fellow students and launched into a riff about how amazing it was that someone had found the lost portion of King's "I have a dream" speech where he specifically went into the evils of sodomy and how it was a menace equivalent to racism. Rumor had it that he had been forced to cut that part of the speech out at the last minute on account of time constraints.

While we ate lunch we watched as the occasional (Obviously America Hating Liberal) pedestrian walked up to the two champions of love and tolerance (unless you happen to have thought Brokeback Mountain was a good movie) and bitch at them about utilizing a symbol of tolerance to promote an agenda of intolerance.

Of course, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn that King would have agreed with the message these two gentlemen were promoting. He lived in a completely different era and the Black community is quite well known for having an "issue" with homosexuality in modern day.

I contemplated going up to them as well and giving them a piece of my mind, but decided that they would probably reveal that they had explosives underneath their bulkly overshirts and blow me up. It's what the Rev. King (in addition to Jesus) would have wanted them to do. Eric (the other student) pointed out that they would probably be cross shaped explosives. I added that the explosives would probably be filled with little cross shaped bits of shrapnel that have been blessed by the Pope. Eric pointed out that they probably didn't like the Pope. He may be right, but I'm sure the Pope would have liked them.

I need to get a digital camera for these sort of moments.

Zombie Zimulator

Something cool I found on the web while persuing a website that Suzanne sent me a link for. This simulator was programmed by the same guy that put together urbandead.com, which I and Jon Anderson play on occasion.

1.15.2006

"Bareback Mountain"

Scottland and I saw it at the Strip Mall Mega-Complex in Natomas, just north of Sacramento. We both agreed that while it was an average movie, it was certainly the best gay movie either of us had ever seen.

We both agree that the cut-away scene that briefly appears while Ennis is getting some bad news in a phone booth was uneccesary and very trite. One of those, "this is what happens to homos" sort of things and just not needed. We don't like that it was very ambigous as to whether the cut-away was real or imagined. My guess is that it was imagined since it involved a crow-bar and that was specifically mentioned in Ennis' boy-hood story.

I just didn't think it added much to the movie, although we did spend ten minutes discussing three seconds of film, so maybe its inclusion was a good thing after all.

Basically, I liked the movie in spite of the fact that it was relentlessly depressing. I would have liked to see Ennis get something other than a likely case of lung cancer.

Also, we noticed that Jack's wife's father was the XO of the Pegasus from Battlestar Galactica. I know this because Scottland shouted it out in the theatre. We both then said "Frack you."

I don't really know what else to say, besides "Jake, Scottland and I would like to invite you on a lovely island getaway."

1.12.2006

Back In The Lab

So it turns out that working in the lab (at least right now while I set up my first 'experiment' is a lot like my old job at the Washington Technology Center, minus the frustration of working for a bunch of clueless idiots. I wonder how long it'll take for me to decide that everyone here is a clueless semi-retard. *chuckle* Oh wait, too late . . .

For the next five weeks, I'm going to be measuring the absorption spectra of 3/5 semi-conductor nanoparticles dispersed in glass over a range of temperatures from -180 to +100 celsius. I fired up my apparatus for the first time yesterday and I'm already identifying problems that'll need to be fixed. The biggest problem so far is that the temperature measurement that the system is making doesn't seem to reflect the actual temperature of the sample. That's kind of a problem.

Anyhow, it's kind of nice to be doing this sort of work again.

1.09.2006

Cyclops The Cat

My roommate studies cat's that have the genetic defect that causes this. Pretty freaky, huh? The article for this photo can be found on yahoo.

The Plague

I spent most of my christmas break sick. The first half of it was some sort of achey, head-coldish garbage. I recovered from that right around Christmas and then almost immediately developed a nasty cough that's only now starting to let up. It was still pretty bad on Friday, but I spent the entire weekend doing exactly nothing. I'm feeling much better today, but have decided to skip classes. This cough seems to be very sensitive to my level of exertion, so I figure if I do absolutely nothing today (except of course my homework that's due on Wednesday) I'll be almost 100% by tomorrow.

1.08.2006

Who Made Up This Advertising Campaign?


So I'm on the LA Times webpage, and I see an ad for audible.com in the gutter on the left side. My only thought is "chunky latino gay fabio from the musketeers wants me to go to audible.com?"

If you go to dontread.org, you'll discover that chunky gay medieval fabio is actually "Emilio", an audible listener.

Who thought of this add campaign? It's kinda bad.

1.05.2006

The Lord Of Terror

Here's a screen capture of me kicking the self styled Lord of Terror's scaley ass. My 30th level sorcerer, Suzanne, was able to rather easily defeat him with a combination of Glacial Spike and Blizzard.


The interesting thing about the game is that when you complete it, it resets back to the beginning on a harder level. It's the same game over again with the same monsters, only now they're much harder to kill. In theory I could take Suzanne up to 60th level if I really wanted to.
I wish I had gotten more screen captures of some of his cool magical powers. It was pretty spectacular.

Maybe now I should buy the expansion pack so I can go kill Baal, Lord of Destruction.

Annoying Celebrity Self Love Fest

Normally I would never watch the Oscars. Jon Stewert is hosting it this year. I may have to watch it for a bit.

1.04.2006

Puerto Rico

I just got back from playing a new board game, Puerto Rico, with one of my fellow grad students Mike and his friend Amy. It was very cool. I predict that I will purchase this game and bring it with me to Seattle at the end of January. Perhaps a game night at Scottland's will be in order if time permits.

Home Again

I'm back in Davis now. It's wet. Apparently the place was deluged with rain while I was gone. It's been much more Seattle-like since my return, ie gray and slightly drizzly. When I was being driven from the airport to Davis, I noticed that the Sacramento was only a couple of feet short of the top of the levee. Apparently it had come down a bit since the highest point of the flood.

My first day of class is tomorrow, I think. I'm not actually sure that there are classes tomorrow, but it's the first day of instruction. I'll go to the class room and see if anyone else shows up. I'm only taking two classes this quarter, advanced reaction engineering and molecular modelling. Both classes are apparently fairly heavy on the numerical techniques, so I may really enjoy my classes this quarter.

I'll also be working in Professor Sen's lab for the first five weeks of the quarter. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. I'll stop by his office tomorrow and find out when he actually wants me in the lab. It looks like I'll be analyzing glass dispersed 3/5 semiconductor nano-particles using some sort of infra-red spectroscopic technique. Other projects were available, but it sounds like this one can be done in the five weeks alloted and might lead to an actual publication.

On a different note, say hello to Tropical Storm Zeta. Zeta has a fairly good chance of becoming a hurricane in the next day or so. Ummm, someone really needs to tell the Atlantic Ocean that hurricane season ended a month ago.